The antibiotic tablet Ciprocin-500, adulterated with zinc phosphide, a chemical used in rat poison, that killed 16 women in Chhattisgarh, is being sold with impunity in most medicine shops in Odisha. But the State Government does not appear to be too concerned about it.
The unhindered sale of Ciprocin-500 was revealed by an employee of the Raipur-based pharmaceutical company Mahawar Pharma, manufacturer of the tablets, during interrogation by the Chhattisgarh Police on Monday.
The Chhattisgarh Police, after seizing the drugs and sealing the plant premises in Raipur, have sent the drug to the Central Drug Testing laboratory in Kolkata for further tests.
However, the police, during interrogation, came to know that the company, before being sealed, had distributed thousands of cartons of the killer drug in Chhattisgarh and Odisha.
Sources said as the company offers nearly an 80-per cent profit margin on sale of the tablet, medicine shop owners in Odisha have been selling it in huge quantities.
While the company sells a strip of Ciprocin-500 containing 10 tablets at prices ranging from Rs12 to Rs30 to the medicine shop owners, the latter sell it to the customers at Rs60.
Even when doctors prescribe Ciprofloxacin-500 manufactured by another company, these medicine shop owners push sell Ciprocin-500 to patients assuring them that these tablets have the same components as Ciprofloxacin-500.
Health and Family Welfare Secretary Arti Ahuja reportedly claimed that these tablets of Mahawar Pharma have not been procured for any Government hospitals in Odisha.
Admitting that she has no knowledge about the volume of sale of these tablets in the medicine outlets in the State, she said the Drugs Controller has been asked to conduct search operations in all medicine outlets.
The Health Department has not taken any steps to create awareness on the effects of Ciprocin-500 tablets nor has it sent any notice or information about this to any Government and private hospital authorities and the medicine shop owners, sources said.
An investigation by a local newspaper revealed that most of the doctors and medicine shop owners in Odisha are unaware of the death of 16 women in Chhattisgarh after they were administered Ciprocin-500 tablets after sterilisation.