[india-drug] Re: Sale of household remedies (4)

["Dr Gurudas Khilnani" <drgurudas@rediffmail.com>]

Sale of household remedies (4)
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This is regarding sale of household remedies. We all know that almost all types of medicines are available as if they were OTCs in India. There are instances where over a year old prescriptions are refilled without prescriber's endorsement. I have a fear that it may promote irrational use of medicines.So far as medicines such as quinine are concerned,its free availablility may deprive us all of the benefit of quinine's effectiveness in drug resistance malaria. We already have a few antimalarials at our disposal.We are also aware that of the laks of chemists shops,only very few are run by genuine registration holders.Several hundreds are run on a loan certificate paying a some of a few thousands to the holder.With the level of literacy, availablility of common remedies freely will give chemists a free hand to dispense all types of medicines with impunity.Kindly consider this aspect also so that rational use medicines is promoted. Instead an alternative way could be to strengthen Rural anganwadi workers and ANMs to prescribe  and dispense limited number of medicines for a limited period only.

Dr Gurudas Khilnani
Professor of Pharmacology,
JLN Medical college, AJMER  
"Dr Gurudas Khilnani" <drgurudas@rediffmail.com>