ICYMI: Here are our top stories from Saturday, December 28
Here are some of the top stories from The Kathmandu Post (December 28, 2019). A customer purchases medicines at a pharmacy in Thapathali, Kathmandu. Even at discounted prices, pharmaceutical companies make a profit of 20 percent. All photos by Anish Regmi/TKP
Here are some of the top stories from The Kathmandu Post (December 28, 2019).
When drug companies, pharmacies and doctors all benefit, patients pay the price
While purchasing medicine at the Paropakar Maternity and Women’s Hospital pharmacy in Thapathali, you might labour under the misapprehension that the price of medicine is dirt cheap. A 1 gram injection of paracetamol, whose listed Maximum Retail Price, or MRP, is Rs448, is being sold at Rs128.40. A 500mg injection of the antibiotic meropenem, whose MRP is IC410 equivalent to Rs656, is being sold at Rs312.
This is the case with most medicines the pharmacy sells. A cursory comparison of the listed MRP against the prices that the medicines are being sold at would lead anyone to think that they are getting a bargain—at less than 50 percent or 70 percent of the listed price.
Samajbadi Party may have quit government but it doesn’t seem to have a way forward
After exiting the KP Sharma Oli government, leaders from the Samajbadi Party Nepal have been saying that the party will focus on strengthening itself to provide an alternative to the Communists and the Congress. Political analysts, however, say that the party has lost its way and is unlikely to become an effective force outside of government.
Party leaders said they wanted to reach out to the people to inform them about their reasons for quitting the government and that the party would now focus on raising their issues in Parliament as part of the opposition.
Foreigners in the Pokhara Premier League have been playing without work permits
The two-week-long Pokhara Premier League, which features a host of foreigners on the cricket pitch, will end on Saturday. The league includes international players, from Canadians to Pakistanis, who play for Expert Dhangadi, Biratnagar Titans and Chitwan Rhinos.
But none of the 16 foreigners playing in the league obtained a work permit from the Department of Labour, a mandatory provision for any foreigner, besides Indians, working in Nepal.
Lack of organic certification hits Nepal's tea exports
Exports of Nepali tea dropped 24 percent year-on-year to Rs1.16 billion in the first four months of the fiscal year due to lack of organic certification.
“International importers do not buy tea without organic certification,” said Deepak Khanal, acting executive director at the National Tea and Coffee Development Board. “As a result, demand for Nepali tea has been falling every passing year.”
National TB Center forced to purchase TB vaccine from Indian black market
The National TB Center under the Department of Health Services had to purchase multidrug-resistant (MDR) tuberculosis vaccine from a black market in India due to a chronic shortage of tuberculosis vaccine in the country.
"To prevent discontinuity in the treatment of patients infected with multidrug-resistant TB, we were compelled to purchase Kanamycin vaccines from Indian black market," Dr Sagar Kumar Rajbhandari, director at the center told the Post. "We did not have much time to fulfil the procedures of the Department of Drug Administration."
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