Kolkata: In a bid to check the circulation of fake or spurious medicines in the market, the state government is all set to issue an advisory to all the medicine shops, pharmacists and wholesalers next week giving a detailed outline as to what ought to be done. A high-level meeting was recently convened at the state secretariat Nabanna in this regard. It has become a concern for the Health department officials to stop the circulation of fake medicines. The officials have come to know that many unholy businessmen were luring customers with an offer of high discount on the drugs. It was learnt that an advisory may be issued in the beginning of next week spelling out specific instructions for the medicines salers.
State government has already warned many medicine shops in Kolkata against selling essential drugs at higher prices or else the license of these shops may be cancelled. Substantial chunks of the fake and substandard medicines have been recovered during raids by state and central drug control officers at multiple places in the state. In the wake of a series of fake medicines being recovered from various parts of the state, the state health department will also ask the medicine shops to put on display the QR codes of the medicines so that the customers can have an idea if the drugs they were buying for were proper. If the customers scan the codes, they will also get to know information about 300 types of suspected medicines. If they compare the list, they will easily understand whether the medicines they were buying were genuine or not. Over 300 medicines have been identified as fake which include pressure-related drugs, diabetes drugs, inhalers etc. The Drug Control General of India has already sent QR codes to the state Health department and it was also instructed that medicine sellers will have to check the medicines before selling them in the market. The Directorate of Drug Control in Bengal has already published phone numbers so that people can directly call these numbers to draw the attention of the authority if they suspect any strips of medi-cines or bottles to be fake. The numbers are 033 2225-2213/ 033 2225-2214.