By Prior Beharry
FORTY-five out of 280 pharmacies inspected by the Health Ministry have been found to have unregistered or expired drugs.
This was revealed by Chief Medical Office Dr Rohan Parasram at a 21st Meeting – Public Administration & Appropriations Committee of the Parliament on Wednesday.
He was responding to a question from committee member Fyzabad MP and Vice-Chairman of the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee Dr Lackram Bodoe about how the public would know whether they were purchasing genuine drugs in a pharmacy.
Dr Parasram said there has been a lot of discussion about inspection of the Chronic Drug Assistance Programme (CDAP) pharmacies in the country.
He explained that the Ministry of Health had two agencies, the Office of Principal Pharmacist Office and the Chemistry Food and Drug Division, which hav inspectors doing the monitoring.
Dr Parasram said, “They have inspectors in both departments and they have a mandate to actually inspect pharmacies.”
He said a report from the director of the Chemistry Food and Drug Division Farz Khan showed that between February 2023 to April 2024, 280 pharmacies were inspected and 45 were found to either have unregistered or expired products “which were seized of course and then… referred to the TTPS for further investigation and then action if required so.”
Dr Parasram said there were just under 20,000 drugs registered for use in Trinidad and Tobago.
He was in high praise for the inspectorate.
Dr Parasram said, “I think they have began to do quite a lot of good work and really, (I want to) put on the record that the inspectors, deserve some commendation for the volume of work.
“And post their inspections, we have seen a reduction in the number of expired and unregistered products, even when they revisit the same pharmacies, so we seeing some direct impact and of course as it goes through the process of investigation, we hope that we will see some fruit in terms of prosecutions going down the line.”
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