KABUL (SW) – Officials at the National Food and Drug Authority say that there are 56 pharmaceutical companies operating in Afghanistan, which supply more than 10% of domestic needs.
Javed Hajir, the spokesperson of this department, told Salam Watandar that Afghanistan has reached self-sufficiency in the production of 15 types of medicine.
He added: “Our action for self-sufficiency includes the production of six types of syrups, four ointment types, one tablet type, one capsule type and one powder form of medicine.”
He said the medicines made by local manufacturing companies are effective and of good quality. “Unfortunately, the low-quality drugs available in the market are drugs that were smuggled in the past.”
Meanwhile, the Afghanistan Pharmaceutical and Health Products Industry Union considers the shortage of raw materials and drug smuggling to be the main problems for the growth of the pharmaceutical industry in the country. Sayed Noor Padshah Rouhani, a member of this union, said that the indiscriminate import of drugs has also caused the value of domestic products to decrease. He added: “Any type of medicine that comes with smuggling is rejected by us. According to international laws and our country, who has determined its quality? Drug trafficking is a great injustice to the nation. ”
Officials in the Authority of Afghanistan, accepting the illegal importat of drugs into the country, say that they have plans in place to prevent this process. Javed Hajir says: “In the past, more than 75% of drugs were smuggled. We tried to close all channels of drug smuggling. For this year, we have decided to do this in cooperation with the defense and security departments and the created committee.”
However, Sharaf Zaman, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Public Health, says that efforts are underway to grow the pharmaceutical industry in Afghanistan and that the ministry, as the responsible body, has started work in this sector. The spokesperson of the Ministry of Public Health added: “We are trying to use domestic products in our centers. We ask the pharmaceutical companies to produce standardized medicines to solve people’s problems.”
Drug manufacturing companies in Afghanistan produce more than 600 types of drugs, including tablets, serum, drops, antibiotics, and syrups.
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