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In line with a Haryana government decision to curb pre-natal sex determination and abortion, Gurgaon district’s Chief Medical Officer and Civil Surgeon Dr Alka Singh Wednesday directed all wholesalers and retailers to halt the sale of Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) kits.
MTP kits, comprising five tablets, including one Mifepristone and four tablets of misoprostol, face a ban in the state. Both medications are classified as Schedule-H drugs, requiring a valid prescription from a registered medical practitioner (RMP) for the purchase.
Wholesalers and retailers of MTP kits have been asked to strictly comply with the regulations to ensure public health safety and regulate the drug distribution system, Dr Alka Singh said.
Dr Singh added that recognised MTP centers have been instructed to procure only “Mifepristone 200 mg tablet” for pregnancy-related treatments, and that too exclusively from the district central store at the Sector-31 polyclinic in the city.
She stated that these centers must maintain accurate stock registers and submit monthly positive reports to the department to ensure effective monitoring of drug availability and usage.
Haryana’s sex ratio at birth rose to 905 between January 1 and August 18 this year, up from 899 in the same period last year, according to details shared by the State Task Force (STF) constituted by the government.
The STF had earlier found “widespread use of procured MTP kits procured online from Goa, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh” by son-crazy couples despite the ban. The Haryana Health Department had earlier directed the state police to trace phone records and location history of the accused in such cases.
In a meeting held in July, the STF had stated that couples in Haryana who have at least one living female child and wish to have another child through in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) must obtain prior permission from the District Appropriate Authority. This requirement will apply to couples who already have a girl and a boy as children.
In August, a health department team in Sonipat arrested a quack supplying MTP kits in Narela. The State health secretary had at the time instructed chief medical officers (CMOs) to coordinate with police and legal teams to ensure convictions in such cases, and also called for streamlined staffing to provide CMOs with adequate legal manpower.
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