KATHMANDU, Jan 19: Continued load-shedding has threatened safe storage of medicines, especially the vaccines that need special temperature to maintain quality.Prakash Medical Store near the maternity hospital at Thapathali is one among several medical stores in the Kathmandu Valley that are having hard time maintaining the quality of the medicines and medical equipment. [break]
“It is obvious we face difficulties, because there are several medicines that need to be preserved in refrigerator,” said Salina Maharjan of the store. According to Maharjan, the prolonged load-shedding has made it difficult to handle medicines including suppositories (a laxative plug used in constipation). “The medicine needs to be kept in the cold temperature,” said Maharjan, whose shop faces direct sun light in the mornings.
Similarly, medical instruments like syringe that are applied directly to the body also need to be kept in refrigerator to maintain the quality, she said.
“We don’t open refrigerator during load-shedding hours to ensure that the ice inside doesn’t melt due to continued exposure to outside temperature,” Maharjan says, “We don’t have any other way out.”
Not different is the argument of Jitendra Chaudhari at Narayani Pharma, a medical store near the Norvic International Hospital. “Thanks to the winter, the ice does not melt for about eight to 10 hours,” Chaudhari said. “But we are not sure if the ice will work when the weather starts getting hot in a few weeks time.”
He said his store has measles vaccines, insulin, TT vaccines and Latoprost, a type of eye drop that needs to be kept in special temperature. “Till now we haven’t noticed any problem with the quality of the medicines but we are not sure if the situation remains same if the load-shedding continues for some more months,” a worried Chaudhari said.
“If the quality decreases it’s visible from outside because the color of the medicine or vaccine changes. We haven’t seen such changes and if we notice any change we will stop selling such medicines.”
According to Dr Bhupendra Thapa, former chief of Department of Drug Administration under the Ministry of Health and Population, vaccines need to be kept in the temperature between two and eight degrees Celsius. He also said that other medicines too should be kept in cold room. But for general medicine storage the temperature should be between 25 and 30 degrees Celsius.
However, the ministry says it has its own mechanism to protect the quality of medicines and vaccines even during load-shedding.
Dr Shyam Raj Upreti at the Ministry of Health and Population said the ministry has seven major medical stores. Besides major medical stores about 90 government hospitals across the country too have their own medical stores. “We have arranged diesel generators in all the medical stores.” The districts that have no electricity have been using kerosene refrigerator.
The government provides various vaccinations free to the children below five years of age.
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