The menace of spurious drugs circulating in the market is claiming many lives or is delaying the recovery of gullible patients. Unfortunately there is no regulation on the manufacture of medicines in our country. Though on paper, the requirement for Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) exists but it is hardly adhered to.
Small unauthorized units in remote parts of the country make spurious drugs and get these marketed through well-known companies. This is specially so in case of expensive medicines like antibiotics or fast moving drugs.
Though we have a Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) to make random checks of these drugs regarding their viability, but in practice it is done only if someone complains. Having regulations in place is not enough.
The regulations must be stringent with no loopholes and more importantly existing and new drugs must be regularly, actively and assiduously checked albeit on a random basis to ensure that they are fit for purpose and have been through the correct checks.
Usually, the doctors come to know about spurious drugs when after prescribing a particular drug, they find it is not giving the desired result or there are side effects and if with the change of brand the desired result is obtained. But in the process the prescribing doctor gets a bad name and sometimes this even results in assault of doctors.
Controlling the menace of fake drugs is not a very easy job as the small units producing these drugs are spread in remote parts all over the country and they are located in small one to two room dingy places without any sign board etc.
To control this we need a very powerful regulator in the form of FDA which functions without any political interference. FDA should carry out random inspection of samples from pharmacies.
Also, each medicine strip or injection vial should have a barcode wherein the origin, manufacturer details and composition of the drug should be available so that in case it is not as per laid down standards the culprit can be caught. Once the culprit is nabbed there should be stringent punishment as they are playing with the lives of sick and vulnerable people.
