Wheat {P}ill Responsible For Alarming Number Of Suicides

A thirteen years old girl committed suicide by poisoning herself with wheat pills here on Tuesday in the outskirts of district Swabi. She was initially rushed to District Headquarter Hospital but due to lack of facilities, she was referred to the Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar but she died on her way to provincial capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In agriculture sector, the Grain Preservative Pills, commonly known as Wheat Pills is used for the preservative to preserve grains and to elongate shelf life of the grains. It is also called Aluminum Phosphide (AIP) Pills, as Aluminum Phosphide is the main ingredient in it. Upon ingestion of wheat pills, on contact with acid in stomach, the substance liberates phosphine gas that destroys cells of heart, kidney, liver and pancreas. Gul Meena was 15 years old and a student of 8th grade when she committed a suicide by taking Wheat Pills (Ghanamu Golai in Pushtu) in evening after coming back from school in 2019. Her school fellow Najma Illyas said, that Gul Meena took such action due to pressure from home after she was forced to get married to her cousin. She narrated that, the day, when we’re coming back from school in afternoon, Meena was talking and planning about the suicide and mentioned Wheat Pills that she is going to take, if the matter could not get solved but, we didn’t take her serious. Illyas explain. It was summers night and I was about to offer Esha prayer at home, when I heard the sad announcement of her last prayers from the loudspeakers of local mosque in Swabi, She lamented. The Khyber Medical Collage (KMC) Forensic laboratory carried a research of the last three years stated that they received 796 suspected poison cases in which 123 (49.39%) are males and females were 126 (51.85%). However district wise study showed that maximum numbers of positive cases were detected from Peshawar District 104 (31.3%), followed by Swat District 49 (14.8%) in which (wheat pill) was detected in 108 (43.37%) cases across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. On talking to Aziz Ahmed, local vendor of Agriculture Medicine in Shewa Adda, Swabi said that before we were selling such tablets to anyone who demand but after increase in suicidal cases in locality on using such tablets, it may increase sensitivity in local vendors. He warned that many other shopkeepers in the market still selling such tablets to any one without any perception just to earn few more bucks, Ahmed added. He informed that, majority of the children come to us and demand such tablets and the local vendor sell them as they think it may be need at home for Agriculture purpose. He mentioned that, vendors in locality never been received any training on their sensitivity or any other instruction from government side on selling such tablets. Research claims that Female and young people from Peshawar and Swat are more prone to Aluminum Phosphide (wheat pill) poison as the market rate of one tablet is 6 rupees where the pack, containing 10 tablets is worth 60 rupees. Therefore, it is easily accessible however the purchasing ratio of such tablets increase to the maximum during sessional day’s right after harvesting crops among the local farmers. On contacting to Majid Khan, who is a registered Agriculture Medicine dealer in Mardan said that it’s very difficult to regulate on such medicine but we could make their use limited. Among like many other, he explain that due to the need of farmers, it’s very common and available in the street of villages and shops as it’s also very cheap in the price. The dealers sell it to the unregistered vendors of village just for the easy access and facilitation of the farmers, Khan added. He stressed Government that they should limited their sells to Veterinarian Medicine Shops in villages and also impose ban who sell it to the underage people, he suggested. The Government of Pakistan should bring legislation or implement on emergency basis for the use of such medicine and broadcast public service messages on National Television and Newspapers to aware people, Khan concluded. Wheat Pills are very common in village homes for the people who belong to the farmer’s profession. It’s also sell openly in the village markets while vendor in villages selling it to anyone without any perception, licensees or permits from government of Pakistan. On contacted to the Police in Swabi, a reader in local Police Station, say’s on the name of anomoty that the ratio of suicide in female using such tablets is on raising and high till date as comparing to the male suicidal ratio. He call female sensitive and mentioned the easiest way of suicide as it’s very easy in access due to keeping such tablets farmer’s homes for agriculture purpose. Research carried by KMC concluded with recommendation that easy and cheap availability of Wheat pill or Aluminum Phosphide (AlP) should be banned at the gross root level by the government of Pakistan. However, the government should take preventive measures for easy availability and should make policies for poison control across Pakistan. Moreover, research said that AlP should be included in the medical and pharmaceutical curriculum in detail and research studies should be conducted to discover new treatment guidelines which will decreasing the mortality rate. Research stressed over government that they should established Poison Control Center in each district across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, documents concluded.