Letter from Lahore: Medicines sell like hot cakes as winter lingers on

With the winter this year extending well beyond the season, and even octogenarians reporting they cannot recall a colder February, residents appear also to have suffered more than the usual share of colds, coughs and flu.

As a result, city pharmacies are reporting huge sales of lozenges, tablets, cough syrups and cold medication.

Also selling, almost equally well, is a mix of antibiotics, even though these are often ineffective against viral infections.

The widespread availability of almost all medications without prescription at drug stores has, over the years, led to wide scale abuse of medication such as antibiotics, and also potentially addictive anti-depressants and other dangerous drugs.

Ritalin, for instance, a substance that apparently enhances alertness and combats fatigue or sleepiness, is frequently used by students to stay awake longer hours to study.

Doctors warn the effects of such misuse can be highly dangerous. Certainly, the misuse of antibiotics, especially the best-known ones, has led to growing resistance to such medications.

Health experts also say viruses have mutated, as a result of drug misuse, and assumed forms that are especially difficult to treat.

Another growing problem is the tendency of mixing antibiotics or other drugs with concoctions sold as herbal cures.

A few years ago, crushed steroids and antibiotics were discovered from a brand of 'Joshanda', a mixture of herbs used as a kind of tea, and hugely favoured as a means to combat colds and sore throats.

Similar substances are thought sometimes to be contained in the medicines sold by homeopathic doctors and street-side quacks who can be found in many city areas.

The high fees charged by many qualified doctors and the poor state of public sector care means in fact that many people turn to such quacks in an attempt to cure sickness.

While dusty, dry weather is often thought to contribute to the spread of illness, this year the cold, rainy spell appears to have done almost equal damage.

Attendance at offices and schools has been badly hit, and at times it seems almost everyone in the city is nursing one ailment or the other.

But while this winter hazard comes along with the many bonuses, including hot soups sold at roadside cafes, the spectacle of hundreds of kites in the sky each afternoon, tasty fried foods served up in a drizzle and so on, it is the failure to regulate the sale of drugs that presents a genuine threat to health.

All but a few pharmacists sell drugs on request, and self-medication is exceedingly common.

So far, attempts to regulate drug sales have not met with any sustained success, and this year, too, drugstores are reporting huge sales.

It is thought that only greater public awareness, combined with tough measures against those selling medications illegally can solve the problem.

While laws exist, these are almost never enforced and until they can be implemented, it is feared the abuse of drugs will continue, contributing, ironically, to greater ill-health as new strains of illness-causing viruses emerge and claim a growing number of victims each year.

The writer is former editor of The News, Lahore.