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NEW DELHI, Nov.13

CONSUMERS worried about the increasing incidence of spurious drugs can take heart — the Centre is considering tightening the norms for ensuring safe and quality drugs.

With the aim of moving towards zero error concepts in manufacture and quality control of drug and other healthcare products, the Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Mr Shatrughan Sinha, held a meeting with health ministers of those states that either have a large drug manufacturing base or a large user base.

Health Ministers of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi and officials from Haryana, Punjab, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal participated in the meeting.

While the Drugs and Cosmetics Act and the Rules are found to be adequate to tackle the problems of spurious drugs, Mr Sinha said that enforcement was not uniform across the country. Laxity on the part of one State negated the good work done by drug regulatory agencies elsewhere, he added.

In India, a drug manufactured in one State can freely move to any part of the country and hence it was important for state governments to meet their obligations under the law to ensure proper enforcement and clamp down on criminal elements who misuse the law.

Further, the Minister said that the Department of Health had taken steps to streamline various provisions under the Drugs and Cosmetic Rules, including computerisation and countrywide networking of all Drug Control Offices and Laboratories.

A Capacity Building Project for augmenting drug testing facilities in the country is also underway and is being implemented with World Bank assistance.

Mr Sinha lauded the fact that domestic generic pharma companies had become a dependable source for supply of cost effective quality drugs. India is the fourth largest producer of medicines by volume and even a minor episode of spurious drugs damages the overall image of the quality of drugs and the credibility of the regulatory system, he said. Therefore, in the Indian context it is not limited to a public health issue only, he added.

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