As part of the Union health ministry's national drugs survey for a scientific study on the extent of problems of spurious drugs and drugs not of standard quality (NSQ) in the country, the three state drugs testing labs at Gujarat, Karnataka and Maharashtra have received 6000, 1400 and 200 drug samples for testing and analysis respectively.

The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) formulated the survey plan to project a clear statistics on spurious and NSQ drugs in India. Initiated in April this year by National Institute of Biologicals (NIB), the pan-India survey involves a mammoth task of sampling drugs followed by complete testing of the drugs for the first time in the history of India. The uniqueness of the project lies in the fact that it is facilitated by an innovative software which offers an online mechanism for traceability of drugs sampled and tested besides providing transparency with scientific evidence.

NIB is an autonomous institute under the Union health ministry and is also National Coordinating Centre (NCC) for the drugs survey. The drugs survey has collected 43,000 drugs samples till date.

The AKS software named after its innovators Dr Akanksha (AK) and Sunish (S) enables online transmission of data with reference to drugs drawn under the survey from NIB to the state drugs testing laboratories. The test and analysis reports are also being received online by NIB from these drugs testing laboratories with the help of the software. The software has facilitated in ushering transparency and traceability in all aspects of this national drug survey. Further, this software will be instrumental in statistical analysis of the field drugs survey and drug test/analysis laboratory data and report writing by NIB.

Earlier, a survey to assess the extent of spurious drugs in the country was conducted in the year 2009 which revealed that the extent of drugs found spurious was 0.046 per cent only.

As a part of the survey, field data or samples have been collected from 665 of the total 676 districts of the country based on a statistical design till date. Drug samples have been drawn from healthcare institutions and retail pharmacies from across the country to assess the quality of drugs available to the common man.

To kickstart the survey, the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) under the ministry of statistics of the government of India had asked the state governments to provide information to arrive at a statistical design for the survey like information such as the number of retail outlets (district-wise); information regarding the maximum prescription of drugs under each of the 15 categories including their trade name district wise; number of civil hospital stores (district-wise); number of central medical store (state-wise); and number of Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS) dispensaries throughout the country.