Karnataka government will set up special squads to check the sale of spurious drugs. The State's department of Drugs Control is expected to use these squads to conduct surprise checks in the sale of spurious drugs and the licenses of chemists found selling such drugs will be cancelled.

According to Kagodu Thimmappa, minister for health and family welfare, government of Karnataka, there are loopholes in the drugs distribution network. "We plan to plug it by setting up 18 warehouses where drugs procured from the government hospitals will be tested and stocked. Stern action will be taken against those marketing spurious drugs."

The health minister also brought to notice that a pharma drug manufacturer was operating in Karnataka under the guise of leading pharmaceutical companies in the country and selling spurious drugs.

The spurious drugs detected in the market include Chloramaphenical capsules (batch 5200), Tetracycline capsules (RU035), Ampicillin capsules (5604), Tetramisole hydrochloride (2005), Novmox 250 (MN921), Anaton tablets 55, Trimethoprim and Sulphamethoxazole (031V).

He said that it had been prime facia established that P K Pharma in Bangalore was selling spurious drugs by putting the label of Orissa Drugs and Chemicals Ltd, Bhubaneswar. The dealer procured the orders in the name of Orissa Drugs and chemicals and while supplying the drugs he included some spurious drugs.

R Anand Rajashekar, drugs controller, government of Karnataka said that there were major inspection drives conducted by the drugs control department all over the State and wholesalers found dealing with spurious drugs were nabbed. The drug control inspectors who raided chemist outlets have found samples of spurious drugs with labels indicating names of leading pharma companies like the Mumbai-based US Vitamins, Economic Pharmaceuticals Pvt. Ltd., Hyderabad-based Standard Organics Limited [SOL] and the Bangalore-based public sector pharma company Karnataka Antibiotics & Pharmaceuticals Limited (KAPL). He recalled that the spurious drugs were Chloramaphenical manufactured by the KAPL, Tertacycline by SOL, Ampycillin by US Vitamins and Economic Pharmaceuticals.

"The wholesalers said that they were unaware that the drugs were spurious. But a tough round of interrogation by the inspectors made the wholesalers show the invoices. All the four pharma companies who have been drawn in the manufacture of spurious drugs have given a written statement that they did not manufacture any of the drugs claimed in the invoice. The State Drugs Control department is now investigating to find out the manufacturer of the spurious drugs. All wholesalers and retailers are alerted to be cautious of dealing with spurious drugs," informed Anand Rajashekar.

The action taken by the State Drugs Control department for manufacture of spurious drugs or violating the manufacturing norms stipulated by the Drugs Control Department fall under three categories for the cancellation of license which are suspension of part or whole license, Issuing a warning notice, followed by prosecution.

V Hari Krishnan, president, Bangalore District Druggists and Chemists Association expressed that the most important issue of the sale of spurious drugs was the lack of drug testing facility in the State. "Currently the infrastructure available in the Drugs Control Department is out-dated and is short of technical staff. This was the main reason for spurious drugs to enter Karnataka."

There were a lot of rumours on spurious drugs sales in Karnataka and more often when the details were analysed much of them had no element of truth, pointed out Hari Krishnan. In the wake of a drastic increase in the awareness among consumers, it was difficult for the trade to deal with spurious drugs at least in the city of Bangalore. Retail outlets in the outskirts could have sale of spurious drugs, he added.

H Jayaram, additional drugs controller, Karnataka drugs control department, said that there was a growing incidence of the spurious drugs sale and his department had been on the check against this violation According to him, the most critical problem is that there was a drastic difference in the proportion of licenses issued to the number of drug inspectors here in the State. Although all drugs control departments faced this problem because of the government of India order on restriction of filling up vacancies which was more than 80 per cent was the main cause of department being understaffed.