Vijayawada: It has become a herculean task for the Drug Control Administration ( DCA officials to ensure that the Fixed Dose Combination (FDC) drugs are withdrawn from the shelves of medical shops.The Drugs Technical Advisory Board (DTAB), the expert body of the Union health ministry has recommended to ban 329 FDC drugs after it was directed by the Supreme Court.As the ban on the FDCs has come into force with immediate effect, it is the duty of the DCAs in all respective states to check that these drugs are not in use or sold anymore. However, the DCA officials are finding it difficult to search and check every pharmaceutical outlet to look for these drugs.According to sources, no consolidated list of companies manufacturing FDC drugs is available even with the Union government. Different companies located in different states are manufacturing the drugs with different brand names.A senior official said that in the absence of central database on the companies and the stocks that they were holding in the market, the DCA officials had to go around and verify every shop to recall the drugs. Had there been a central database of these companies and the amount of stocks that each company moved into the market, it would have been an easy task for the officials to track the stocks.The DCA officials have so far recalled FDC drugs worth about Rs 5 crore in Krishna district, while the recalled drugs are worth around Rs 3 crore in Guntur district. Till now, the DCA officials have recalled the drugs worth nearly Rs 20 crore across the state. The assistant controller of DCA for Guntur district, S Vijay Kumar said that there are more than 3,500 medical shops in the districts and with their lean staff available they had to go around all the shops to physically verify the stocks.

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