Vietnamese health authorities will test the quality of all drugs imported from 37 foreign pharmaceutical producers starting Oct 1 after finding numerous violations recently, said the Drug Administration under the Health Ministry. The move came after 37 drug makers, mostly those from India, South Korea, the U.S., France, Canada, Cyprus and Pakistan, were found to provide substandard products to Vietnam from Nov 1, 2011 to Aug 23, 2013. The ministration urged health departments nationwide to supervise domestic importing firms to take samples to test the quality before offering to the local market in a move to protect rights of consumers. Earlier, the agency also asked to boost the management on drug prices at hospital pharmacies as well as intensify the inspections on pricing at retailing drugstore and set stricter fines on violators. Each year, drug quality control agencies nationwide checked tens of thousands of drug samples, finding that substandard or fake items always make up 2.67%-3.33% of total samples. Fake medicines, which used to appear in rural and remote areas, now exist at hospitals via bidding and are prescribed by doctors for patients. Technology for fake medicine production is more and more sophisticated, making it difficult for even insiders to find out, experts said. The World Health Organization (WHO) noted that sales of fake medicines is booming in world as they account for 10% of the global pharmaceutical market with annual revenues of EUR45 billion, killing 200,000 per year. (Phap Luat TP.HCM – HCM City Law Sept 4 p2)
