Gujarat FDCA to launch mobile drug testing lab this year

Gujarat Food and Drug Control Administration (FDCA) will launch a mobile drug testing laboratory this year for spot testing of any spurious drugs.

"The mobile lab equipped with latest gizmo's is expected to cost around Rs 67 lakh, for which provision in the budget has been done. It will be launched this year,"

Gujarat FDCA Commissioner H G Koshia said.

The laboratory will be equipped with near infrared spectrophotometer, x-ray fluorescence spectrometer, ion mobility spectrometer and Raman spectrophotometer.

"Gujarat will be first state in India to launch such a laboratory, usually found in developed countries like US for on the spot detection of spurious drugs," he said.

"The lab would help step up surveillance in the state and lead to quick detection of fake drugs, which otherwise is a lengthy process," Koshia said.

Last year, GFDCA analysts were imparted training on effectively conducting tests and analysing the samples using these equipment by experts from the USFDA. The regulator last year had launched a mobile food testing lab.

As a part of its e-governance initiative, the drug regulator has already developed and launched an SMS alert system through which all the stakeholders in the state could

be notified of the recalled fake drugs.

This cost-effective model was launched in the state last year to protect the patients from spurious drugs. In last few months, the system has issued hundreds of

alerts on sub-standards drugs detected during random sampling done by the Gujarat FDCA, asking chemists and stakeholders to stop the sale of such spurious medicines.

Several states like Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Chattisgarh, among others are in the process of replicating the Gujarat SMS model to check spurious drug circulation.

WHO has also evinced interest in Gujarat's SMS recall model for the spurious drugs.

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