Chennai: Over 30,000 medical shops across the state including 5,000 in Chennai, remained shut on Friday as a part of the nationwide strike to protest against the Centre’s move allow online sale of medicines. However, pharmacies attached to the hospitals functioned normally for the benefit of patients, following a request from the state health department.
The call for the strike, which commenced at midnight last night, was given by the All India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists and the Tamil Nadu Chemists and Druggists Association (TNCDA) and it continued till 6 pm this evening. Protest demonstrations were held across the state, as part of the strike, and the members of the TNCDA participated at all the district headquarters. Sources said about 8.5 lakh pharmacies were closed nation-wide and loss following the strike was estimated to be about Rs 400 crore, including Rs 35 crore in TN.
According to TNCDA general secretary K K Selvan allowing online pharmacies could pave way for sale of spurious and expired drugs. The Centre has called for objections and suggestions to the draft rule framed by it laying down certain conditions to allow online pharmacies, he said. Selvan, quoting a recent survey, said there were about 500 fake Internet pharmacies in the United States where forfeited and sub-standard medicines were sold to patients.
‘’This is happening in a ‘developed’ country where the people are said to be literate. If this is implemented in India, the chances of a patient with cardiac problems losing his life due to the consumption of fake drugs will become a possibility,” he said.
He also said if online pharmacies was allowed, forging prescriptions would become easy and they could be uploaded to get the drugs whatever they want, be it habit-forming or contraceptive pills, which poses a real danger. Stating that the concept of e-pharmacy would pose a big threat to the country as the sale of banned medicines has been on the rise in the US and other countries, he said since the possibilities of children getting addicted to drugs were more, the government should reconsider the move and withdraw it.
