The government has come up with a list of recommendations for the pharmaceutical industry to combat the menace of manufacture and sale of spurious drugs.
A committee was constituted by the ministry of health and family welfare under the chairmanship of S P Agarwal, director general health services, to study the issue.
It consisted of representatives from the pharmaceutical industry, state drugs regulatory authorities, Central Drugs Standard Organisation, All India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists (AIOCD), Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI) and the Indian Drugs Manufacturers Association (IDMA).
The committee recommended that each state should set up an intelligence-cum-legal cell and anti-spurious squads under the supervision of a senior officer for investigation and should follow up cases of spurious drugs.
The state drugs control authorities should employ watchers or decoy customers for purchasing samples of drugs and for keeping a watch over the movement of suspected drugs. The committee report also suggests that the pharmaceutical industry, through its associations, should play an active role in combating the menace. A checklist should be prepared for the guidance of the manufacturers and retailers to identify and distinguish between the spurious and genuine products.
The committee recommends that the AIOCD should develop its mechanism in identifying the persons directly or indirectly involved in abetting the distribution of spurious drugs or drugs of questionable quality. The checklist prepared for the guidance of the members should be widely published by AIOCD.
There should also be a discrete watch over units which have become sick or whose licenses have been cancelled as such places are prone to becoming centres for the manufacture of spurious or counterfeited drugs.
Also, training programmes need to be conducted for officers of the drug control administration in matters concerning development of intelligence, detection, investigation and preparation of filing of complaints and court procedures.
