Recently, the Maharashtra Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) raided 27 online pharmacies located in Mumbai, Thane and Pune and seized drugs worth crores.
Advertisement
Notably, there is restriction on purchasing toxic drugs in India. Even though online medicine retailers don’t have much of a share of this pie, their numbers are growing steadily.
Prashant Tandon is the newly appointed president of the IIPA and CEO of 1mg.com, an online pharmacy.
The Mid Day reports that chemists in Faridabad will also be joining in the strike, along with Goa’s chemists, as reported by ET, Karnataka Organisation of Chemists and Druggists as reported by Daijiworld and All Kerala Chemists and Druggists Association, as reported by The Hindu.
Legally speaking, they are clinging on to a pre-historic law from 1940s, concerning the sale of drugs and medicines in India.
The Minister of Health and Family Welfare JP Nadda said that the government had not taken any decision on allowing online sale of drugs. Toxic drugs can only be provided to patients if they produce the original prescription at the medicine stores, as per the section 65(11) of the Act. “There are also remote areas in the country where there are no chemists and an online trader can do the business”, said Arvind Singhal, chairman of Delhi-based retail consultancy, Technopak Advisors. “The chemists shouldn’t have gone on a strike”, stated Sikander.
The AIOCD feels that in view of these issues, opening the doors of an e-pharmacy could be detrimental to the health of the population without studying the possible risks and threats associate with the move.
“We can track all our orders, all batches of medicines; we have records of all prescriptions”.
Tandon also criticised Wednesday’s planned strike by the brick and mortar stores.
Those in online business of medicines said they were doing no wrong. This causes a lot of problem for the general public. “What is between the government and us should not harm consumers”. In Delhi, over 6,800 chemist shops were shut. So were thousands of chemists across Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh.
“We want the government to close down all illegal online pharma companies immediately”.
In Gurgaon, adjoining the national capital, almost 1,500 chemist shops remained shut.
Advertisement
But the chemists’ association says that it has put into place safeguards to protect against anything untoward.
