In a shocking incident, a pharmacist and partner of a pharmacy in Naupada, Thane were found to be allegedly selling drugs to patients which were meant to treat animals. The drugs were wrongly labelled and sold to patients.
"On October 24, our officers were conducting a check inside the pharma store and saw 82 of these incorrectly labelled," assistant commissioner (medicine) Girish Hukare is quoted as saying by The Times of India.
"The top layer of the label stated that it was for humans, while on the inner sticker it was written that the dosage was for animal treatment and not for human use. We are looking into the case and have seized around 3,000 such drugs from a few distributors in Thane and a wholesaler in Ghaziabad," he added.
He further stated that Food and Drugs Administration has served notice to cancel the licence of Lifecare Medico when they came across this during the routine inspection. The accused have been booked under various sections of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act 1940.
"We are also making inquiries with the manufacturer located in Punjab to verify if it was a labelling mistake," added Hukare.
As per officials, the drug Oxytocin is prescribed to pregnant women post delivery to contain excessive bleeding and induce labour pains.
The partner, Ravindra Shirole and pharmacist Lalita Jhinzad claimed that they were unaware that the drug was being mislabelled as Oxytocin instead of Oxymac.
Hukare also said that they are trying to inquire as to how many hospitals the drug was sold to. He said that they haven't come across any medical complaints yet.
