Mumbaikars will soon be able to buy medicine strips as per their requirement

Soon, patients will able to buy medicine strips in smaller quantities as per their requirement rather than having to buy the entire strip. Recently, the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) asked the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) to reduce the size of the packets so that patients can buy dosage as prescribed by their physicians.

The chemists associations and doctors welcomed the move, saying it will prevent wastage and abuse of medicines. “People with lifestyle diseases and psychological disorders will benefit because they are currently forced to buy packets of medicines,” said experts.

“Patients were forced to buy entire packets because pharmacists were unable to cut the entire strips. Cutting the strips often results in loss of name, batch number or expiry date. So we suggested that DGCI to introduce smaller packets bearing mandatory details,” said Arjun Khadtare, FDA joint commissioner (Drugs).

FDA Commissioner said they had received several complaints from consumers across Mumbai and Thane about pharmacists selling entire packets instead of doses prescribed by physician. “We have not specified any particular type of medicine, but medication for lifestyle diseases and common ailments such as cough and cold can certainly be added to the category,” said Pallavi Darade, FDA Commissioner.

She added that they had raised the issue during our workshops with pharmacists and they informed us that major problem was expiry date and name of the medicine, which were getting cut if they dispensed smaller quantities.

FDA officials said as the enforcement agency under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, the DCGI can amend existing norms packages.

The members from chemist associations said for the past four years, pharmaceutical companies started increasing the size of packets to increase sale and profits.

“Strips which had 10 pills now have 60 pills. The information about the medicine such as its generic name, price, manufacturer details and expiry date is scattered all over the packet owing to which we could not dispense smaller quantities,” said Prasad Danve, president, retail and dispensing, chemist association, Mumbai.

“Patients are most likely to stop taking medication once their symptoms subside, which is one of the major reasons of antibiotic resistance. The issue of drug abuse can be curbed better by counselling patients to complete their dosage and use it effectively to treat their ailments and not symptoms,” said Dr Om Srivastava, infectious disease expert. for medicine