'26 drug samples from govt hospitals found to be substandard'

According to an RTI reply by the Drugs Control Department of Delhi, nearly 26 samples of drugs were found to be 'Not of Standard Quality' (NSQ), which were distributed among government hospitals in the last five years (January 2012 to January 2017).

The drug inspector randomly collected samples from government hospitals. During the potency test of 222 samples, as many as 26 were found to be substandard.

The samples were collected from pharmacies of government-run hospitals between January 2012 and January 2017. 26 of these were declared as NSQ, while 12 samples are yet to be tested.

52 samples were collected between April 2014 to March 2015 and 82 samples were collected between April 2013 and March 2014 from pharmacies of public hospitals, according to the RTI response that came early this month.

Eight samples each failed to meet the quality standards in the fiscal year 2014-15 and 2013-14.

According to the Drugs Control Department, none of the samples collected from 2012-2017 were declared as 'spurious'. The department regulates manufacture of drugs and cosmetics and sales of drugs.

It also collected drug samples from wholesalers, manufacturing units and agencies involved in the selling and purchase of drugs for quality testing purposes.

In response to Delhi resident Rajhans Bansal's query, the department said that out of the 218 samples collected from retail and wholesale outlets from April 2016 to January 2017, 109 samples met the quality standards, nine samples fell short and 100 samples are yet to be tested.99 samples were collected in the fiscal year 2015-2016.