Daily NEWS Srilanka

As a consequence of the control price of 48 groups of essential drugs which has taken effect on the gazette paper issued by the government last midnight, a shortage of drugs is to be seen at pharmacies all over the island today. 

The reason for this shortage is that the relevant drugs cannot be sold at the stipulated control price and as a result traders are refraining from selling those. For example, the control price states that Paracetomol has to be sold at Rs. 1.30 and therefore Panadol which comes under the family of Paracetomol too has to be sold at the same price while the relevant companies have sold the said drug at a price above 1.30 and under such circumstances there is a severe demand for Paracetomol which is a locally produced drug and pharmacies able to sell only those, resort to selling Paracetomol only
while other pharmacies have refrained from it. On an inquiry made by us from Union Chemists, a leading pharmacy in the capital what they say is that under the existing conditions it is not possible to trade in reputed trade names of essential drug items in future and it would not be possible to comply with customers demanding the 'brand' they ask for. 

Because of the said price control a certain section of the public is benefited while certain well-known names appear to disappear from Sri Lanka. A few days before this what the Health Minister announced was that when doctors writing out prescriptions they should be free from the tradition of writing out the trade name.