33 drugs supplied to govt hospitals in Arunachal sub-standard

Itanagar, Jul 19: 33 drugs supplied to various government hospitals and stores in Arunachal Pradesh were found to be of sub-standard quality during laboratory tests.

Out of the 355 samples collected during 2014-15 and 2015-16 from various government stores and hospitals for analysis, test reports of 238 drugs were declared safe and 33 medicines were found not of standard quality (NSQ), Assistant Drug Controller Gebomb Tayeng said in a release today.

With regard to 371 samples collected from markets, the quality of nine drugs out of 314 tested were found to be NSQ while results of 57 are awaited.

As per the test report received on July 12, the percentage of NSQ for government procured medicines was 13.86 per cent while it stood at 2.87 per cent for drugs collected and tested from markets, the release said. Actions are being taken against erring firms and six cases have been filed in a court of Yupia, headquarters of Papum Pare district.

"The high percentage of NSQ drugs under government procurement shows that quality of drugs has been compromised by the medicine procuring agencies and suppliers, thereby ignoring the quality, efficacy and safety of patients," Tayeng said.

"It has been observed that most of the government drugs procuring agencies do not follow the norms and guidelines such as entry of batch number, expiry date, name of manufacture in the bill/challan," he said.

He suggested for formulation of proper system and mechanism for procurement of medicines to ensure safety and quality of drugs.

PTI