A team of drug control officials from the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) office recently concluded a random sampling of medicines distributed across the state of Chhatisgarh to detect not-of-standard and sub-standard drugs. A senior official informed that around 77 samples have been sent to the Central Drug Testing Lab at CDSCO for analysis. Similar kind of sampling exercises have been conducted recently in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu and reports on analysis are being awaited.  

The sampling exercise started with Northern States like Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh and followed by Rajasthan since last year and will be taken up in other southern states in the coming months.

A team of drug control officials from the DCGI office along with the Rajasthan drug control officials had done random sampling of medicines at drug stores and at public healthcare institutions last year in December. Around 60 drug samples were collected during the random sampling which was part of the exercise meant to keep a stringent check on the quality of medicines.

Says Dr K Bangarurajan, deputy drugs controller of India "The exercise of doing surveillance through random sampling in drug stores is done with the aim of protecting patient's rights necessitated by the growing health safety awareness across the country. Every month a state will be chosen and will be put under surveillance to keep a check on the quality of medicines.”

“It will be an ongoing exercise in coordination with state drug regulators to enhance enforcement. The exercise would sensitise state drug regulators in enforcing the law more stringently,” Dr Bangarurajan explains.

The exercise involves the process of drawing samples of medicines from public healthcare institutions and retail pharmacies. The samples are then sent for testing to government authorised labs across the country to check their quality and efficacy.