Gujarat Food and Drug Administration (FDCA) seized antibiotics worth over Rs. 51 Lakh as part of its recent detection of a booming inter-state spurious drug racket spanning across Maharashtra, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh.
FIRs have been filed against two Ahmedabad based wholesalers as a part of the crackdown led by Commissioner FDCA Dr H G Koshia.
“I have written to the concerned state drug controllers and the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) about the multi -state spurious drug racket in the interest of the patient safety as these drugs showed negative upon lab investigation,” informed Dr HG Koshia while explaining about the magnitude of the racket which needs urgent regulatory action.
“Based on a tip-off that these drugs have been supplied in a clandestine manner to Ahmedabad and other areas, we laid a trap and detected 8 products giving negative results through our hand held near infra-red machine and raman spectroscopy machine,” Dr Koshia further informed.
The medicines include antibiotics like cefixime, azithromycin and ofloxacin.
Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had also recently detected an inter-state abortion drug racket with network spanning across Himanchal Pradesh and Rajasthan.
Further to this, Maharashtra FDA has written to the drug licensing authorities of Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan for taking stern action as per the provisions of the law.
Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) pills are recommended by physicians only for pregnancies that haven't exceeded 63 days. Medical abortion pills are prescription drugs that are different from emergency contraceptive pills. They are taken between 7 to 9 weeks of pregnancy and cause the embryo to be expelled from the uterus. Chemists can dispense the drug only against a prescription from a doctor who is registered under the MTP Act.
A similar kind of racket spanning across Gujarat and Delhi was the first in the series of such cases unearthed by the FDA team two years ago. Drugs worth over Rs. 3 lakh were confiscated during the raid. The accused were found contravening the provisions of the law under different sections of Essential Commodities (EC) Act and Drugs and Cosmetics Act (D&C Act).
According to official sources, Maharashtra FDA officials laid trap on the three accused people engaged in procuring and peddling the pills in Mumbai on a tip off. The racket was run by a licenced stockist based in Mumbai. Over 400 strips of non-surgical abortion medication were confiscated from the Mumbai based dealer and two medical representatives who supplied him the pills. Mumbai based stockist had been violating the law of the land by illegally procuring, stocking and selling the drug to unauthorised people.