Bengal readies advisory to pharmacists over fake drugs — from QR codes of medicines to licence cancel

“The medicine shops will be told to put on display the QR codes of the medicines so that the customers can have an idea if the drugs they are purchasing are genuine or not. They will also get information of about 300 types of suspected medicines,” an official of the Health Department said.

“The Drug Control General of India has already sent QR codes to the state Health Department. The Directorate of Drug Control in West 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 medicine or bottles to be fake,” the official said, adding the numbers are 033 2225-2213/ 033 2225-2214.

A few weeks ago, the West Bengal government sought the cooperation of the Bihar and Uttar Pradesh governments in its investigation of spurious drugs recovered from various places, including in North 24 Parganas and Malda, stating that many such medicines were made in these two states.

Last month, a large amount of spurious and substandard medicines was recovered during a raid by state and central drug control officials at a warehouse in Titagarh, North 24 Parganas.

In February, spurious medicines worth around Rs 17 lakh were seized from a godown in Howrah’s Amta area. The office of the agency was sealed, and its owner arrested.

In Kolkata, authorities had uncovered a Rs 6.5-crore racket dealing in life-saving medicines that were found to be spurious. At least 44 types of low-quality and spurious medicines have flooded the market, according to sources.