Around 10 percent of medical retail stores operating in and around Nepali capital Kathmandu Valley are selling substandard medicines not registered with Department of Drug Administration (DDA), local media reported on Wednesday.

According to eKantipur.com website, of the 206 pharmaceutical outlets inspected by DDA, the drug regulatory body in the country, in the first eight months of the current fiscal year, around 22 were found dispensing medicines that were not registered with the government.

"We have already asked the stores engaged in the malpractice to furnish written explanation stating the reason behind sale of unregistered medicines. If their reasoning is not convincing, we will suspend their business," a senior official of DDA told the website on condition of anonymity.

In order to ensure that medicines sold in the market are of good quality, the government has made it mandatory for all wholesalers and retail stores to register the medicine at DDA before introducing it into the market.

DDA has permitted around 40 Nepali companies and 200 foreign companies to sell more than 7,000 different brands of medicines in the country.

During the course of inspection, DDA had also found that around 17 percent of the shops had stored expired medicines and sample drugs that can only be issued by physicians and another 30 percent of the shops had not maintained record of medicines that can be abused by drug addicts.

According to the department, of the 206 shops inspected in the first eight months, around 35 were found selling expired medicines, and another 62 shops had failed to keep records of medicines that can be abused.

Currently, around 2,300 wholesalers and 14,000 retail medical outlets have registered their business with the government, of which around 800 wholesalers and 2,000 retail stores are operating in Kathmandu Valley.

Source: Xinhua