Delhi: Not sure if the medicine you are taking is safe or not? But how do you tell the difference between what is fake and what is real? Endeavouring to reduce this risk, government will soon launch a ‘track and trace’ mechanism for top drugmakers to prevent usage of substandard and counterfeit products.Also Read – Sri Lanka’s Fuel Stocks About To Run Dry; Country Doesn’t Have Money To Pay For Fuel, Crude Oil Import
According to report by times of India, around 300 top drugmakers will have to affix barcodes or quick response (QR) codes on primary packaging labels. Antibiotics sold over an MRP of Rs 100 per strip are expected to be included. Also Read – Google, Facebook, Twitter Under Centre's Radar Again Over Anti-Competitive Practices
TRACK AND TRACE
- The proposed mechanism will allow consumers to scan the QR code leading them to a government website.
- Further, these codes will authenticate the information about the drug – identification code, proper and generic name of the drug, brand name, name and address of the manufacturer, batch number, date of manufacturing, date of expiry and manufacturing license number.
- Consumers will be able to feed unique ID code on government portal and track it via mobile phone.
- First phase will see approximately 300 top selling medicines with barcodes printed on primary packaging.
- While there are still weeks to go for the lunch of this mechanism, reportedly, this system might lead to increase in cost by 3-4 per cent.
As per reports, centre is working on setting up of a central database agency where consumers can have access to information via a single bar code provider for the entire industry. Also Read – Explained | Why India Is Facing Coal Shortage And How It Affects Power Supply?
According to data by World Health Organisation (WHO)about 10 per cent of medical products I low and middle income countries are substandard or falsified , nonetheless such cases are found all over the world.