SRINAGAR, Mar 22: Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) today said that the state of Jammu and Kashmir is flooded with unsafe combination drugs putting lives of people at risk.
Terming the situation alarming, President DAK Dr Nisar ul Hassan in a statement said that 40% of the fixed-dose combinations (FDCs) in the market are irrational and these risky combinations are jeopardizing public health.
There are thousands of brands of unhealthy combinations and pharma companies continue to promote them and are luring medical practitioners to prescribe them.
Over the years, efforts to weed out irrational FDCs have proved futile as attempts to withdraw them were countered by powerful pharma industry.
A recent study published in Journal of Public Library of Sciences revealed 73% of NSAID (painkiller) and 81% of antidepressant combinations were marketed in India without approval.
The most pressing concern with irrational FDCs is that they expose patients to unnecessary risk of adverse drug reactions, for instance, combination of nimesulide + paracetamol exposes patients to greater risk of liver damage.
FDC of Diclofenac (painkiller) and seratiopeptidase (enzyme) do not offer any particular advantage but increases the risk of gastrointestinal bleeding in patients.
Antibiotic combinations like ciprofloxacin + metronidazole are contributing to the development of resistant strains of bacteria which is a serious public health problem.
Pharma companies continue to reap the benefit from huge sales of irrational multivitamin combinations which can be bought without presenting a prescription.
According to WHO expert committee combination drugs should not be used unless there is no alternative single drug available for treatment.
WHO introduced the concept of essential medicines in 1977 which has been accepted worldwide as a powerful tool to siphon off irrational combinations.
Though JK has formulated its own essential medicines list but the drugs have not been made available because of which the proliferation of undesirable combinations continues unabated.
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