Bengaluru: The Karnataka government has sought assistance from the Union Health Minister in countering the menace of the sale of drugs which have failed tests and further appealed to ensure steps to withdraw contaminated drugs from markets all across India.
Minister for Health Dinesh Gundu Rao wrote a letter on Friday to the Union Health Minister JP Nadda in this regard.
“I am writing to bring to your attention the repeated instances of sale within Karnataka of contaminated injectable drugs manufactured in other states.
“Between January 1 and February 16, nine injectable drugs manufactured in other states failed sterility testing in our state government laboratories. The details of drugs, along with batch numbers, are provided in the annexure to this letter,” Minister Rao stated.
This list does not include numerous injectables manufactured by Paschim Banga Pharmaceuticals based in West Bengal, whose contaminated injectables caused the deaths of five young mothers in Ballari district of Karnataka, Rao said.
While he instructed to take adequate steps to ensure these drugs are no longer sold within Karnataka, he expressed concerns over contaminated drugs manufactured by these companies being sold in other states in India, which are high risk to patients.
He further added, "Given the ‘life or death’ consequences for patients being administered these contaminated drugs, I request you to use your good offices to ensure that all products sold by these companies are withdrawn from the market across India and that these companies are not allowed to sell any more drugs until they are inspected by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) for compliance with Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP),”
He also suggested creating a system for inter-state alert sharing, mandatory sales record sharing, and a public alert system to inform doctors, pharmacists, and patients about contaminated drugs.