The Union health ministry will soon conduct an all India survey on the extent of availability of spurious and not-of-standard quality drugs in the country. It will be a broad-based survey in which around 42,000 samples would be drawn from across the country which would include 15 therapeutic categories of drugs which is listed in National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM), 2011.

According to ministry sources, funds to the tune of Rs. 8.5 crore have been sanctioned and the survey is required to be completed by February, 2015. Dr. Surinder Singh, director, NIB, Noida, will be the convener of the Survey for which the exact quantity of drugs to be sampled will be finalised after discussion with Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Hyderabad and National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), Delhi.

This broad-based survey would help in identifying the geographical areas where spurious drugs are available so that a focused monitoring is done by the concerned authorities in these areas for eliminating the menace of spurious drugs. The proposed survey is to be conducted in the year 2014 and 2015.

For the survey, the National Survey sample office (NSSO) of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme has already started collecting information. The NSSO has asked the state governments to provide information to arrive at a statistical design for the survey. The NSSO is collecting information such as the number of retail outlets (district-wise); information regarding the maximum prescription of drugs under each of the 15 category including their trade name district wise though local drugs Inspector as suggested in the project report; number of civil hospital stores district wise; number of central medical store states wise; and number of CGHS dispensaries throughout the country.

Earlier, a survey to assess the extent of spurious drugs in the country was conducted in the year 2009 by the ministry of health, through CDSCO. On the basis of statistical principles provided by ISI, Hyderabad, under this survey 24,136 samples of 62 brands of drugs belonging to 9 therapeutic categories of 30 manufacturers from over 100 different pharmacy outlets in different regions of the country and located in each stratum viz. metros, big cities, district, towns and villages were collected. The survey has revealed that the extent of drugs found spurious was 0.046 per cent only.