A report prepared by the DDA after inspecting 364 pharmacies in 10 districts said that the DDA has also asked 19 additional pharmacies to close down. Seven shops were temporarily suspended, 24 were warned, and 22 were made aware of possible action if they fail to meet the criteria set for running a pharmacy. [break]
Shops were closed down because the owners could not produce registration certificates. Some of those closed down and asked to close down are shops that were selling medicine banned in the country. Some of them could not produce the medicine purchase vouchers and were selling drugs not registered with the DDA. Similarly some of them did not store medicine and vaccine under the required temperature or left the medicine scattered in the shops.
Prakash Sharma, pharmacy inspector at the DDA, said that if medicine is left unorganized in the shops, there is high risk of misuse. For example Dainol and Diavol are two different medicines used to treat two different diseases. Dainol is given to diabetics, while Diavol is used to treat digestive problem. “If such medicines are placed together, patients may be given the wrong medicine,” Sharma explained.
The DDA also monitored 23 Pharmaceutical Companies. It collected medicine samples from all the 23 companies and sent the samples for lab test to ascertain their quality. So far, the DDA has received test results for 11 of those samples. The results show that the quality of the medicine samples is good.
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