According to the Ministry of Health’s Medical Supply Division, 100 medicines have been confirmed to be of inferior quality from the tests conducted in the last 10 months of 2023.
About 52 drugs that failed the quality tests were manufactured in India, 40 drugs were locally manufactured and the rest were imported from countries like China, Pakistan, Japan and Bangladesh.
In addition, 35 batches of Flucloxacillin Cap were withdrawn in May, and that drug is manufactured by the State Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Corporation in Ratmalana.
According to the Ministry of Health, since 2017, nearly 600 medicines have been confirmed to be substandard. Among them, the highest number of substandard drugs in a year was reported in 2019, and in that year, 96 drugs were confirmed to be substandard. In 2022, that number drops to 86 drugs. According to this year, 100 medicines are reported to be of substandard quality and it is reported that the stock of inferior medicines is the highest in history.