ISLAMABAD: The federal cabinet on Tuesday has decided to give one-time permission for import of polio markers from India and reduce prices of 89 medicines by 15 percent.
The markers, which are used to mark the fingers of children after administering them polio vaccine, are approved by the World Health Organisation (WHO). It is worth mentioning that after India’s Aug 5 annexation of occupied Kashmir, the Pakistan government had on Aug 9 decided to suspend all kinds of trade with India.
READ MORE: Govt to announce incentives for overseas Pakistanis: PM
However, since a large number of medicines and raw materials are imported from India, the country’s pharmaceutical industry started demanding that the ban be lifted on them because otherwise, Pakistan could face a severe crisis of medicines, especially life-saving drugs, within a few weeks.
Consequently, the government had in September lifted the ban on the import of medicines and raw material from India. National coordinator of the Emergency Operation Centre for Polio Dr Rana Safdar, while talking to media, said that non-toxic markers were required for marking the fingers of children.
“There are only two WHO pre-qualified manufacturers in the world, in India and China, which manufacture non-toxic markers as children can swallow the ink. Though WHO procures markers for us and, in the past, it had purchased markers from China, there were issues with the quality of markers. We had lodged a complaint that the marks faded before the post-monitoring team’s visit,” he said.
READ ALSO: Speaker NA, Saudi counterpart urge unity among Muslim Ummah
