Karnataka Drugs Control Department is ready with its ambitious project on drug sampling covering the entire state. It will be shortly sending the proposal seeking required funds for implementing the project to the state health ministry.

The state Drug Department is all set to conduct this massive drug sampling exercise in all the 30 districts associating public, non-governmental organizations and consumer forums. The drug samples will be drawn from retail/wholesale outlets at random and will be tested at various approved labs to verify whether they are spurious or substandard.

The Department will present the project report to the State Health Family Welfare department secretary to seek the required budget. “Our project report indicates that the department’s 36 Circles located across the state will go to the outlets situated in the villages, taluks and districts. We have planned a massive drive for test and analysis either accompanying the enforcement officers during their random inspection drive or independently by the said organizations. A team of officers will be put on the job to ensure that the drive is conducted smoothly and efficiently,” Dr BR Jagashetty, drugs controller of Karnataka told Pharmabiz.

“In this regard, the department is gearing up to draw drug samples at random from pharmacy outlets in a bid to assess the quality of drugs and check the sale of not-of-standard quality medicines,” he added.

It is also learnt that Karnataka will be the second state after Andhra Pradesh in the implementation of the drug sampling drive which tested about 530 samples and found around only 11 drugs to be not-of-standard quality.

The aim of the drug sampling project is to create an increased confidence level among the patients and public, part from the consumer forums and the NGOs. The effort will also ensure that the state drugs regulatory body has been ensuring a transparent environment. The extent of inspections and the testing parameters will all be highlighted along with the information on the action taken on the violators, he said.

Since the state government is encouraging the drug sampling drive with the allocation of a dedicated budget proves the importance given to weeding out the presence of spurious and substandard drugs, said Dr Jagashetty.

The need of a drug sampling drive follows the department’s successful exercise on its 171 blood banks in the state where members of a consumer forum organization accompanied the inspectors to assess the quality standards, availability of blood components and safe blood bank practices carried out. In the case of the blood bank inspection, it is for the first time such a drive was carried out.

The department is engaged in carrying out regular inspections every month of production units and pharmacy outlets to ensure that not-of-standard quality drugs and violation in manufacturing practices are at bay.