Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik orders probe into spurious Covid drugs

Acting on a tip off from the Food and Drug Administration, a special squad of Drug Controllers of Odisha raided a wholesale pharmaceutical store at Kanika Chowk in Cuttack, seizing 170 boxes containing 17,000 fake Favipirapir tablets. A firm had allegedly purchased 58,000 ‘Favimaxin-400’, tablets, investigations revealed.

“We got a tip off that the wholesaler was marketing drugs to other states as well. The drugs were not sold in the open market in Odisha, 40,600 tablets were sent to Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh and we have alerted the Drug Controller there,” said state Drug Controller Annanda Sankar Das. The spurious tablets were procured from Uttar Pradesh, he added.

“The manufacturing company printed on the medicines – ‘Max Relief Health Care, Solan’ suggested that the tablets were manufactured in Himachal Pradesh but our investigations revealed that no such drug manufacturer existed there,” Das said. “The samples have been sent for testing at labs in Bhubaneswar and Kolkata. We will submit the results to the crime branch,” he added.

Health and Family Welfare Minister Naba Kishore Das has directed state-wide raids at medicine outlets to check illegal sale of fake COVID-related medicines.