Powder found in tablet wrappers

vinder Sood

Palampur, February 7

A case of substandard drugs being supplied to government hospitals has come to light. These drugs are being made available through the HP Civil Supply Corporation and purchased by the Health Department from manufacturing units through e-tendering for disbursement to patients free of cost.

Telista tablets (telemisartan), a medicine for the treatment of blood pressure, supplied to the Community Health Centre, Khera, 20 km from here, were found substandard. Its wrappers had powder in place of tablets. Though patients had complained to the health authorities, the supply still continues.

Health Minister Vipin Parmar said the matter was brought to his notice and he had directed the CMO, Kangra, to look into it. He said the supplier, who had provided these tablets, had been blacklisted. He assured of a stringent action against the supplier.

“As per rules laid down by the Central Drug Authorities of India, if any medicine is found substandard, the government can recall these from the hospitals. The government had blacklisted the supplier or manufacturer, but it has not recalled the medicines from hospitals,” said a former head of department of the TMC.

Dr Gurdarshan Gupta, CMO, Kangra, said as soon as he had received the complaints, he lifted the entire stock of medicines pertaining to the batch.

The Health Ministry, through the National Institute of Biologicals, conducted a National Drug Survey from 2014 to 2016 where it examined 47,954 drug samples across 15 different therapeutic categories. Overall, the survey showed that 3.16 per cent of the drug samples were substandard and 0.024 per cent were spurious.

For drugs obtained from government channels, the estimated percentage of substandard drugs was 10.02 per cent and spurious drugs 0.059 per cent.