BENGALURU: Following a report by Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), Karnataka State Drug Logistics and Warehousing Society (KSDLWS) has now put in place a two-tier system to test the quality of drugs.The CAG report released last month had highlighted how poor quality medicines were dispensed to hospitals and warehouses in the state by KSDLWS between 2014 and 2017. The society, however, claims that things have changed this year.
The report had observed that only 48 per cent of the samples (6,776 of the 14,209 batches) were tested in three years. As a result, 7,433 batches of drugs were supplied to patients without testing or quality assurance, the report stated. Of the 6,776 batches tested, 27 of them worth Rs 1.23 crore were declared not of standard quality (NSQ).
One year on, the society claims to have set up a two-tier system to test the quality of drugs. Previously, randomly selected samples were sent to the lab for testing. Now, all the 4,000 to 5,000 batches received per year from manufacturers are sent for testing and an online alert system has been put in place to alert hospitals of NSQ drugs. Security deposit is also being deducted to recover money from manufacturers for substandard drugs.
Dr Latha Pramila, technical assistant chief supervisor, drugs section, KSDLWS, said, “We have started testing all samples that we receive and have changed the guidelines too. All samples that we receive from the manufacturers are NABL lab-accredited tested.“The drugs will be supplied to hospitals along with an NABL lab test report. Besides, we have three labs to whom we have outsourced secondary level of testing. We have an online system where unless a sample has been sent for quality control to an empanelled laboratory, we do not issue the drugs to institutions,” she added.