Safety equipment and essential health protective items are now selling like hotcakes as the Covid-19 pandemic increased by manifold the demand for such products.
Besides, panic-buying of such items — hand sanitizer, pulse oximeter, oxygen cylinder, blood sugar machine, disinfecting liquid such as Dettol and Savlon, Hexisol hand rub, chlorine, bleaching powder, masks and face shields — prompted unscrupulous traders to come up with fake products.
Ayub Hossain, deputy director at the Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA) said, “There are a lot of unauthorized companies who are making fake products by distorting names of popular brands.”
“They turn their imitation products and brand them with names similar to the real brands, like Savlon to Savalon or Savelon, to avoid legal action,” he added.
Prof Dr SM Abdur Rahman, dean at the Faculty of Pharmacy and Chairman of Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacology at Dhaka University, opines that the DGDA is responsible for the situation.
He blamed DGDA’s officials who gave businessmen leeway to continue such practices after receiving monetary incentives.
“The counterfeit syndicate takes advantage of the weak systems. People are buying because there is no option to check quality and originality. Each pharmacy should have one pharmacist, while all medical equipment and devices should not be allowed to be sold anywhere except medical shops,” he suggested.
Sharif Uddin Ahmed, president of Bangladesh Medical Instrument and Hospital Equipment Dealers and Manufacturers Association, said that the prices increased because of huge demand.
Only the government can solve this problem by taking necessary measures since some medical products are based on imports, he added.
He also said he does not understand the idea about selling medical items at high prices online, including oxygen cylinders and oximeters, despite its sufficient stock in the country.
In response to a question, Sharif Uddin replied, “We came to know about fake products and we informed the police. Only their strict measures can solve this problem.”
Price soars, available online
The surge in demand caused the emergence of scores of sellers, mostly online, with hundreds of Facebook pages opening since the beginning of the Covid-19 outbreak, all are selling healthcare essentials at various prices and markups.
A user shared his bitter experience about one such seller on Facebook regarding the purchase of an oximeter for his relative who is in home quarantine.
He lamented that the price of an oximeter, which was Tk800 per piece before the outbreak, was now selling for Tk3,000-3,700 apiece, while prices of other products such as blood sugar checking machines rose from Tk800 per piece to Tk1,600, thermometer from Tk20 to Tk70-80 per piece, surgical mask from Tk5 per piece to Tk20-25, a bottle of chlorine from Tk200 to Tk500, a 500ml bottle of Savlon/Dettol disinfectant from Tk180 to Tk500 and a 1-litre bottle of Hexisol from Tk500 to Tk1,000 apiece.
Roadside vendors also in the business
A street seller in Rampura said unscrupulous traders collect real bottles of Hexisol and fill them with coloured liquid, to make them look identical to the real hand rubs.
They do not even have any production or expiry dates, he added.
When similar fake products were found at his disposal, he retorted that some sales representative of obscure companies gave him those.
“I sell those to survive,” the seller said.
Meanwhile, consumers complained that fake medical products were sold in most of the digital outlets.
Arif R Hossain, a blogger, wrote on his Facebook that an oximeter he bought showed 98% oxygen saturation when his daughter put her pencil inside it instead of her finger.
“The result was the same for all my family members. The oxygen saturation of my 11-month-old niece showed 98%, while my 71-year old father also showed the same,” he wrote.
Actions go in vain
Recently, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB)’s mobile court fined four shops at New Market area of the capital Tk2.5 lakh for selling fake and unauthorized sanitizers.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police raided Mitford last Friday and rescued 1,900 litres of counterfeit Savlon and 500 litres of Hexisol.
Seven counterfeiters involved in the incident were arrested, they said.
“Although they are being fined, yet they continue their activities. However, our drives will continue,” said Masum Arefin, deputy director of the National Consumer Rights Protection Department (NCRPD).
