Kathmandu, April 6:

The Department of Drug Administration (DDA) is mopping its brow in relief after the recruitment of 11 pharmacists as drug inspectors on a contract basis for another five months. DDA had been relying on only three drug inspectors and could inspect less than 10 per cent of the total retail pharmacy stock last year.

The Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) provided the fund to DDA from the pool fund of DFID and World Bank. DDA hired the 11 pharmacists on a contract basis from this month and the new drug inspectors have already started their inspection work. Of these, six are based in Kathmandu, two in Biratnagar, two in Birgunj and one in Nepalgunj.

Nabin Shrestha, Drug Administrator at the Department of Drug Administration (DDA) said that the increased manpower would help DDA check the spread of spurious drugs in the market and also ensure that quality is maintained.

“The drug inspectors will check whether drugs are properly stored or not, They will also ensure there is proper patient counselling and price monitoring in retail or wholesale pharmacy,” said Shrestha.

There are 13,575 retail shops throughout the nation, and 40 domestic and 201 foreign pharmaceutical industries.

Due to the lack of manpower only 1,369 pharmacy outlets and pharmaceutical industries were inspected just 97 times in 2005. Legal action was taken against 29 retailers; administrative action was taken aga-inst 12 pharmaceutical industries and administrative action was taken against 322 pharmacy outlets for not obeying rules and regulations last year.

“The newly-recruited drug inspectors have also been given the authority to inspect government health posts and sub-health posts and whether the drugs these posts had been using were under the government list or not,” said Shrestha. “There is a high chance that we would extend the new inspectors’ contracts.”

Santosh KC, drug inspector at the DDA, said that, with the fresh recruitments, they would now concentrate more on pharmacy registration analysis and data collection on the pharmacy sector. KC said DDA needs a branch office each in Butwal and Dhangadi for effective monitoring of pharmaceutical industries and retail pharmacy stores. DDA has branch offices in Nepalgunj, Birgunj, Biratnagar and Kathmandu.