BHUBANESWAR: The Health and Family Welfare department has launched another special drive for tracing and recalling of deceptively labelled ORS packs from medicine stores.
As part of health safety measures, separate teams of officials of the Drugs Control Directorate have been conducting raids in all districts to trace and recall these deceptive packets of ORS from medicine stores.
Health department sources said, 7.92 lakh units of deceptively labelled ORS of various companies and worth around `4 crore have been recalled from the medicine stores in last few days. The drive came after similar raids on medicine stores against illegal sale of medical termination of pregnancy (MTP) kits, misuse of abortion pills and unsafe self-medication.
Drugs controller Mamina Patnaik said oral dehydration salt and liquids should be prepared as per WHO recommended formula. These are manufactured by licensed manufacturers and are generally sold in medicine stores.
“It has been found that some liquid packs deceptively labelled as ORS/electrolyte are now available in the market which are not effective for managing dehydration. They are usually sold under approval of FSSAI. These packs are not suitable for clinical management of dehydration,” she said.
The Health department has made it clear that the drive would continue and stringent action taken against the violators. “The drugs dealers and retailers have been asked not to store or sell these deceptively labelled packets in medicine stores,” Patnaik said.
Earlier, 55 shop owners were issued show cause notice as pre-step towards prosecution and two shops dealing with MTP kits and medicines without proper license were seized and steps initiated for prosecution.