"With the advent of e-pharmacy, there is a need to amend the Drugs and Cosmetics Act 1940 as it does not differentiate between offline and online pharmacies. The government is seized of the issue and is working towards amending the existing law to develop a framework where the consumers are benefited," Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare K B Aggarwal said.
He touched upon the need to create e-pharmacy guidelines that will allow proper tracking and monitoring of sales of drugs, authenticity of online pharmacists and prescriptions, details of patients, helping in reducing drug abuse and counterfeiting.
The official was speaking at a Ficci event.
He suggested that linking a person's Aadhar with e-pharmacy will ensure correct identification of the person seeking medicines.
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Deliberations on ensuring privacy and confidentiality of information, Aggarwal said, are going on and soon, suggestions will be put up for discussion among stakeholders.
The government is working towards drafting a new Drugs & Cosmetics Act 2016 to meet the current regulatory requirements related to safety, efficacy and quality of drugs, Dr S Eswara Reddy, Joint Drugs Controller, Central Drugs Standard Control Organization, said.
He favoured a standard format of prescriptions.