The ministry health and family welfare of Kerala government has cancelled the orders placed for the purchase of Dexajet, anti inflammatory injection, by the Central Purchase Committee on grounds of poor quality.

The ministry acted to withdraw around 40,000 vials of Dexajet, the Dexamethasone injections of Parenteral Drugs India Ltd, Indore, from the public hospitals and drug stores after finding some sedimentation like white crystal particles or fungus growth in a number of bottles.

The government was forced to withdraw the product as the health organizations including Indian Medical Association (IMA) came forward with demands to probe into the issue as the product has already reached patients through various government drug outlets.

The drug procured through the CPC schedule for the year 2005-06 and the stocks, which found as substandard was for distribution from March 2006, it is learnt. Sources from the health department revealed that though the matter was noticed and reported by the pharmacists earlier itself but the government took action only after the matter came to the public recently.

While the government is trying to close the issue by banning Dexajet from the CPC Schedule, sources alleges that the incident is one among many similar occurrence and exemplifies with a similar incident on Ciprofloxacin IV, found to be substandard in some pharmacies at Kozhikode recently. The drug procurement system fails to track down the entire supply of the particular medicine once it found to be substandard as the stocks were supplied without adequate batch wise or supply wise tests according to the drug development policy drawn out by the state government in 2005, sources said.

It is to be noted that, as Pharmabiz reported earlier, government is yet to implement the drug procurement policy, notified by the state government by October 2004, with recommendations for post delivery testing, on the drugs delivered through the district medical stores, in accredited laboratories in the State or outside and the payment for the same should be only when the drug passes the test and duly certified.

"We have warned the government on possibilities of similar issues, right from the year 2005 and this is one among the incidents shows that our apprehensions were not flaw. It is desperate to find that the government is not considering implementation of the policy, constituted by experts, even at this point," revealed sources from Kerala Government Pharmacists Association (KGPA) to Pharmabiz.

KGPA has alleged that faith in the policy has been lost following a decision by the Directorate of Public Health Services asking the district drug store superintendents to accept the stocks of drugs, ordered for post delivery tests, supplied by the CPC firms immediately on receipt and simultaneously arrange for test of random sample of the drug supplied. The Association may take up the issue to the Human Rights Commission in the near future, it is learnt.

Though the current procurement system defines direct purchase of medicines from the manufacturers, most of the medicines are passed through local distribution agencies, also named as liaison workers. Sources accuses that the government lacks facility to track the authenticity of the medicines supplied as per the approval of CPC.

Meanwhile, some sources opined that the matter has been overemphasized by some of the rival companies from the industry, as the latter could enjoy monopoly in distribution of certain products in the CPC schedule.