Rising medicine price is another blow to commoners

Along with the prices of daily essentials, prices of essential drugs have also shot up creating an additional burden for the people in these hard times of economic crisis. According to a national daily report yesterday, the price of more than 50 essential medicines has increased in the last six months.
Quoting the sources of the Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB), the report said the price has increased by 13 to 75 per cent during this time. It is not understandable why the price of paracetamol syrup alone has increased by 70 per cent?
The family that has children below 10 years old has to buy this analgesic all through the year, but especially during the winter, when the cold related disease appears. Besides, prices of medicines for high blood pressure, diabetes, antibiotics as well as gastric diseases which each family has to take on a routine basis have also increased by 13 to 33 per cent.
Statins are a group of medicines which are very important in coronary artery disease as these are prescribed for lowering the blood cholesterol level. The price of this drug has also shot up. Even a few days ago, the price of a leaf of atorvastatin containing 15 tablets used to be sold at Tk 150, it is now at Tk 180.
Moreover, the Department of Drug Administration is reportedly going to increase the price of such medicines as IV fluids, including cholera saline and insulin.
For the common people who have to buy food items and medicines on their daily income it has become a very difficult task to maintain life even though these people are not responsible for creating the present economic crisis.
It is said from the manufacturers that prices of medicines have risen because of the high rate of dollar against taka and once the value of dollar stabilises, the present high price of medicine will come down.
Sounds logical, but if one takes into consideration the plundering of money with the tacit support of the government and the trend of Bangladesh’s market where prices of things hardly come down despite change in situation, one cannot be optimistic about it.
The government’s long period of misrule and corruption has not only destroyed the institutions of the country, it has made the economic situation worse when maintaining lives for the common people has become a struggle for survival.