Drug Management Department Fails to Inspect Foreign Medicine Industries for Three Years

Kathmandu. The Department of Drug Management has been found not to have conducted on-site inspections of medicines from foreign industries available in the market for the past three years. Although the department's annual program has a provision for 'WHO GMP Compliance Audit' of foreign medicine companies every year, its implementation has not been possible.

Most medicines in the Nepali medicine market are imported from abroad. Importers say that most of the essential medicines come from countries like India. On-site inspection of foreign medicine industries is considered mandatory to ascertain the quality of medicines.