Low-cost medicines sold near Sri Lanka’s hospitals may be nothing more than deadly counterfeits, with doctors warning of a silent threat to patients’ lives.
Across Sri Lanka, pharmacies are selling medicines at shockingly low prices, but doctors are warning that patients’ lives may be in grave danger. According to Specialist Dr. Chamal Sanjeewa, Chairman of the Medical and Civil Rights Doctors’ Trade Union Alliance, many of these drugs lack the proper chemical standards required for safe treatment.
Dr. Sanjeewa revealed that some medicines currently available in private drug stores do not even contain the active ingredients listed on their labels. Investigations further showed that some of the companies named on the packaging do not actually exist in the countries where they supposedly operate.
What is even more alarming is the drastic price disparity. In pharmacies near major hospitals, certain drugs are being sold at extremely low or unusually high prices. For example, the drug Papavarine, which costs the government more than Rs. 50,000 to procure, has been sold outside for as little as Rs. 300. Yet follow-up tests confirmed that these versions had no chemical validity at all, and the so-called manufacturers in India were not even functioning companies.
Despite repeated warnings to the Ministry of Health, Dr. Sanjeewa says that no meaningful regulatory action has been taken to clamp down on these dangerous practices. As a result, the perception that “cheap drugs are available” is spreading, leaving desperate patients vulnerable to ineffective or even harmful counterfeit medicines.
Doctors are now calling for urgent raids and scientific testing of these drugs to prevent a national health crisis. Without immediate intervention, patients who rely on these so-called “affordable alternatives” could suffer severe complications, making the cure far more dangerous than the disease.
