The number of Omicron cases is going down, yet it is only now that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is taking action against fake drugs and the illegal selling of medicine.
Why only now? Why the delay in warning the public? It has been a month since people resorted to buying flu medicines from online sources or wherever they can, including sari-sari stores, just to have the tablets or syrup needed to cure family members.
The FDA apparently had to wait for complaints to be filed before it could give out the warnings and issue calls for local government units to do their part.
This lack of foresight and failure to act immediately is symbolic of the reactionary way some government agencies are responding to the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic. The Omicron is a Covid-19 variant that caused a huge leap in the number of infection cases but, luckily for those who got sick, it did not result in severe symptoms. Many of those infected stayed at home and took the advice to self-medicate with the use of paracetamol and other medicine for colds or flu.
When the pharmacies ran out of these medicines during the surge last month until early February, people turned to online sources and sari-sari stores. I did my own scouring for medicines and found India-made versions of well-known branded ones in a Mandaue City pharmacy that did home deliveries. The medicines came from India and were repackaged in Luzon. They appeared to be genuine but I wasn’t sure. They must have been real because a relative got cured by them.
Those not familiar with checking the quality of medicines wouldn’t really know until the office in charge of ensuring safe medicines, the FDA, did its job. Instead, the FDA warned only recently that sari-sari stores are not automatically authorized to sell medicine. They need a license. The FDA also said it would do buy-bust operations to catch the sellers.
The FDA said last week it received 185 reports of sari-sari stores selling medicines, in violation of the Pharmacy Law and the FDA Act of 2009. The Philippine Pharmacy Act or Republic Act No. 10918 states that pharmaceutical products can only be sold in retail drug outlets licensed by the FDA and only professional pharmacists can dispense prescription and over-the-counter drugs.
At the same time, the FDA asked mayors to share the burden of monitoring compliance when it said LGUs can draft or implement ordinances that prevent sari-sari stores from selling medicines.
Crucial to the fight against Covid-19 is access to life-saving medicines and medical supplies. These are oxygen tanks or hard-to-find Remdesivir, Favipiravir, Paxlovid, and other medicines. The FDA must do its job of penalizing illegal selling of medicine and stopping the practice. It should distribute information materials to guide the public on where to get the tablets and how to check if these are fake and dangerous. All these should happen before the next surge.