Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission tests drugs to weed out spurious ones

Chennai: As part of a nationwide exercise to weed out spurious and not of standard quality (NSQ) drugs across the country, the Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission (IPC) has collected about thousands of samples from pharmaceutical companies and sent them to its lab in Ghaziabad for testing.

IPC, an autonomous organisation under the Union health ministry undertook this task to identify and demarcate the geographical areas where spurious drugs are available and take up appropriate measures including eliminating the menace of spurious drugs.

This is being done with the support of the drug inspectors spread across the country. In the city, the drug inspectors collected the samples and dispatched them for testing.

The previous assessment was made in 2009. According to sources, about 43,000 drug samples have already been drawn from healthcare institutions and retail pharmacies from across the country to assess the quality of drugs available for the common man.

The drug sampling done at Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Kolkata in collaboration with Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Hyderabad, will cover 224 molecules under 15 therapeutic categories.

The previous survey to assess the existence of spurious drugs in the country was made in 2009 by the health ministry, and it was found that about 0.046 per cent of the drugs were spurious.

Meanwhile, the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) had sought the state government to furnish particulars on the number of retail outlets — district-wise; information regarding the maximum prescription of drugs under each of the 15 categories including their trade name district wise; number of civil hospital stores; number of central medical store and number of Central Government Health Scheme dispensaries.