KOCHI: In a bid to curb the use of banned medicines, the State Drugs Control Department is launching a mobile phone network, a first of its kind in the state. The department will send mobile alerts to those in the network once a drug is banned or a spurious drug is introduced in the market. The new fast-track system will ensure that the users will be immediately intimated about a banned medicine. The officials in the Health Department, medicos, pharmacists, wholesale and retail drug dealers, nurses and the public can receive mobile alerts from the Drugs Control Department within three minutes after a drug is declared as banned or found spurious. The facility can be availed of by registering with the department’s website www.dc.kerala.gov.in. “Once the department is fully computerised, all those who are associated with the health care system and the public will be able to open an account in the website of the Drugs Control Department,” Drugs Controller of Kerala C S Satheesh Kumar said. Once the users link their mobile phone numbers with the website, they would receive the alert in three minutes, which could help in bringing transparency to the whole system, he said. Satheesh Kumar said in the present scenario, it takes weeks for intimating a hospital, pharmacist or dealer about the drugs that have been banned. “The paper works are really cumbersome and takes a lot of time. The drawback of paper work is that the banned or spurious drug would be in the market for a long time before the pharmacist or the doctor knows about it.“And by the time the notification reaches the doctor, the patient would have taken enough dose of the banned medicine,” he said.
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