Raids on inferior drugs in pharmacies

by Shanika Sriyananda

All pharmacies in the country will come under tight scrutiny of the National Drug Authority (DRA) as the authority has found that some pharmacies are selling inferior quality drugs.

Deputy Director of the DRA Dr. Dhammika Jayalath told the 'Sunday Observer' yesterday that they raided, nine pharmacies in Embilipitiya and has detected a large stock of damaged, unregistered, banned drugs which had expired.

"We were able to raid only six pharmacies and three were closed at the time of the raid. One pharmacy which had not been registered under the DRA since 1995 was sealed and the DRA will take legal action against that pharmacy", she said.

Dr. Jayalath said that the raid followed several complaints from people in the area to the DRA of the side effects of certain drugs purchase from these pharmacies.

According to Dr. Jayalath, most drugs sold in these pharmacies are not hygienically stocked.

"The Food and Drug Inspectors of the DRA detected substandard drugs sold in these pharmacies", she said.

The Deputy Director said that the DRA would carry out surprise raids islandwide as they had received a large number of public complaints on irregularities of pharmacies.