Pharmacies and clinics across Thailand will
have just 30 days to clear their inventories of all pseudoephedrine-containing
medicines once a regulation signed by the public health minister yesterday
appears in the Royal Gazette, or the public journal of Thailand.
"They
must return the remaining stock to the drug companies," Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) secretary-general Dr Pipat Yingseri said yesterday.
He said
the new regulation would apply to all medicines that contain pseudoephedrine,
including ones mixed with paracetamol.
Widely
used in medicines to treat cold symptoms, pseudoephedrine has become a closely
monitored and controlled item in recent years as it is also used to produce
methamphetamine.
Authorities
earlier removed pseudoephedrine-containing medicines from the approved list of
over-the-counter medicines. However, the measure proved inadequate.
Recently,
it was revealed that some 45 million pseudoephedrine-containing tablets had
disappeared from hospitals, raising concerns that the missing pills were
siphoned off into the hands of drug-trafficking gangs.
"In
January last year, we asked the Council of State to determine whether
pseudoephedrine could be listed as a psychotropic substance," Pipat said.
Public
Health Minister Witthaya Buranasiri yesterday said he had signed the
ministerial regulation declaring pseudoephedrine a psychotropic substance that
only authorised persons could use or possess.
Unauthorised
use or possession of pseudoephedrine-containing items shall be punishable by a
jail term of one to five years and a fine of between 20,000 and 100,000 baht
(US$646-3,230). Possession of more than 5 grammes of pure pseudoephedrine will
be punishable by a jail term of between five and 20 years and a fine of between
100,000 and 400,000 baht ($3,230-12,920).
The new
regulation will take effect after it is published in the Royal Gazette, which
is expected to happen very soon.
"We
told drug companies in January that they must stop producing
pseudoephedrine-containing medicines," Pipat said.
The
latest checks showed that there are some 60 million tablets of
pseudoephedrine-containing medicines in the possession of drug companies and 20
million more at state hospitals.
Today(April
4), the FDA will brief drug companies about what to do in regards to the
pseudoephedrine-containing medicines. Hospitals that have such medicines in
stock will be allowed to use them under the close supervision of doctors.
Health
Service Support Department director-general Dr Somchai Pinyopornpanich said his
department was investigating private hospitals and clinics that had ordered
unusually large amounts of pseudoephedrine-containing medicines.
"Each
of [the facilities being investigated] had ordered more than 300,000 tablets
per year," he said.
He said
the investigation had cleared Navamin 9 Hospital because the ordered tablets
went directly to its stock for use at the facility. "But the investigation
has shown that someone used the name of Navamin 1 Hospital to order 922,500
tablets for 70 pharmacies," Somchai said.
"We
have forwarded this case to the Department of Special Investigation to
determine whether the hospital knew about it. But at this point, paper records
show the hospital stopped using the services of this middleman before the
problematic purchases took place."
According
to Somchai, the FDA will be asked to determine what actions should be taken
against pharmacies that received pseudoephedrine-containing tablets from this
middleman.
In a
related development, officials yesterday raided a clinic in Lop Buri based on a
tip-off and confiscated 212,600 tablets and 60 liquid bottles of medicine
containing pseudoephedrine.
"We
will investigate why it stocked such a huge amount of these medicines,"
Pasit Sakdanarong said in his capacity as an adviser to the public health
minister.
To
date, the Public Health Ministry has launched probes against 14 government
officials on suspicion that they had committed disciplinary offences relating
to the misuse of pseudoephedrine-containing medicines through state hospitals.
Of the
14, nine are accused of committing grave disciplinary offences. Eight are
pharmacists, while the other is the director of Thong Saen Khan Hospital in
Uttaradit province.
Puangchomphu
Prasert
The
Nation
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