VIJAYAWADA: Minister for Health and Medical Education Kamineni Srinivas Rao appreciated the works of the officials of Drug Control Authority for seizing fake drugs and taking action against the companies that were manufacturing them. “Soon, the department is going to come up with strict guidelines over medical prescriptions and issue of medicines,” he said.
Addressing a press conference here on Monday, Kamineni Srinivas said, “Every person should check their medicines. Also, they have to carry the prescription of the medicines while purchasing them. Similarly, after every purchase, they have to get a bill copy. Soon, we would bring strict guidelines, where there should not be any sales activity without prescription and without the issue of any bill.
Those who come across any fake medicine, they should inform the nearest drug control authority.”
He further said that the State government would bring unique monitoring system to restrict the use of fake drugs. It would be called Comprehensive Drug Monitoring System (CDMS). “Through Comprehensive Drug Monitoring System , we would easily track the medicines with the unique codes right from the manufacturing unit to the drug stores and also to the customers. All details of the medicine would be made available online,” he added.
CDMS to come into force from 2018
In fact CDMS is the first-of-its kind tracking system in the country which would be implemented from 2018. In this system, each time, when a medicine is manufactured at the company, it is given a special code and the details of the manufactured drug would be put online. Similarly, the code would be tagged at every stage it reaches either to the agent, wholesaler, retailer and customer. With all these details, officials can easily trace what kind of drug is being used by the majority of the people. Moreover, even the consumers’ prescription would be put online.
Through this, the officials are citing that they can curb excess use of antibiotics and restrict fake drugs. The health department officials are already in talks with software companies for developing CDMS. Across the State, there are over 25,000 licensed sellers and 195 drug manufacturing units under use. Soon, all these would be linked to the CDMS.