Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are jointly monitoring the sales and purchase of medicines like analgesics, antipyretics, anti-tussive, cough and cold tablets, anti-biotics for a cough from the medical stores in the city with an aim to trace the suspected patients of COVID-19.
There are about 2,000 retail pharmacies in the city. The Administration has instructed all the pharmacists working in these retail outlets to fill the data of sales and purchase of these medicines and sent it to FDA and NMC officials.
Drug Inspector Swati Bharde said, “The local app is helpful in monitoring the sales of common medicines purchased by patients from the medical stores on day to day basis.
Nagpur city is under the red zone and the mobile app is helping the NMC and FDA to monitor the persons who have purchased common medicines for fever, cough, and cold from pharmacies in the city.
As per the instructions from the FDA, the pharmacist working in the medical store has to keep a record of each person visiting the pharmacy and purchasing the common cold medicines. The record includes the name and address of the consumer, on whose prescription the medicine is supplied etc.
FDA has prepared a list of 2000 medical stores in the city and instructed them to provide details immediately on the mobile app. Pharmacists are required to send complete data on the mobile app to FDA.