100 cardiac patients died after a free given medicine sparked off an unknown disease that is said to get stuck in the bone marrow

The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Thursday summoned Federal and Punjab health secretaries over the death of cardiac patients after a free given medicine sparked off an unknown disease that is said to get stuck in the bone marrow.

Justice Umar Ata Bandial of LHC started the hearing of a petition filed against death of 100 patients by the reaction of spurious medicines at the Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC), the Pakistani news daily The Nation reported.

The suspected drugs were given free to patients by the PIC.
The Punjab government has failed to identify the culprits and has not taken any action against pharmaceutical companies responsible for the manufacturing of theses medicines.

Muhammad Azhar Siddique filed the petition on Monday. In his view, the case was of absolute negligence of the PIC administration.

The medicines sparked off an unknown disease that is said to get stuck in the bone marrow and eventually ends the body’s struggle. The generation of white blood cells stops in the body and a severe chest infection also comes about in such a situation, according to News Pakistan daily.

In what appeared to be a severe negligence, the license of one of the three pharmaceutics laboratories that supplied the apparently toxic drugs to the PIC expired in April 2011, the daily said. However, the company continued to manufacture the medicines in mass and even supplied them in the governmental hospitals in addition to open market.

The provincial government withdrew a batch of 200,000 aspirin tablets from the institute after they were found to be lethal.

Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, who also holds the portfolio of health ministry, stated that investigations into the reaction of medicines were in progress and whosoever was found guilty would be dealt with iron hands, it added.