E-pharma draft missing vital points

Hyderabad: E-pharmacy is soon to be a reality as changes in the regulations of the Drugs and Cosmetic Rules have been proposed and are being drafted but the moot point here is that once e-pharmacy is regularised, it should not be misused to dump medicines in India.

For that reason alone, there has to be a central portal to monitor the drug flow.

A central server through which online prescriptions would be routed was proposed earlier but has not found any mention in the draft regulations that have been released.

According to a senior drug control inspector, “A central server was proposed to prevent misuse of prescription of medicines by ensuring that the patient cannot use the same prescription at various e-pharmacies. This is an important clause which is missing in the draft now. E-pharmacy shall dispense drugs as per prescription received from patients which means that there is a chance to re-use the prescription.”

While there are clauses for maintaining records, address and sale details, the overall control of misuse is an issue which needs to be deftly tackled, stated drug control inspectors.

The narcotic and psychotropic drugs which are under Schedule X will not be available in e-pharmacy. The Government is keen that patient data is maintained by the e-pharmacists which can be shared with the Government for public health purposes.

Dr Phani Kumar, senior pharmacist explained, “The collection and sharing of data for recording the incidence of the disease is acceptable. But sharing personal data of an individual’s disease can be infringing on privacy. This is a thin line and the regulators have to re-think on the concept of data collection.”

The monitoring of the e-pharmacies will be carried out by the state drug controllers who will have the right to check and access details about the medicines and also the customers.