By Nayak Paudel
Kathmandu, Aug. 9: A research conducted to test the quality of essential medicines distributed through health institutions of Nepal has revealed that various medicines are not fit for consumption and the way they are stored is not as per the stipulated standards.
The Nepal Health Research Council had conducted the research in 62 health institutions of 21 districts from all three regions – Terai, Hills and the Himalayan region. Researchers carried out study in one hospital, one health post and one primary health centre each from the 21 districts.
Along with 62 health institutions, the council also included five regional medical stores in the research.
In order to assess the quality of medicines, a total of 244 batches of 20 different generic medicines were collected by trained experts from health institutions and regional medical stores and sent to National Medicine Laboratory for tests.
The result from the laboratory showed that 37 batches of medicines were not fit for consumption. Among the 37 batches, 23 batches were distributed by the government while the remaining batches were brought from other sources.
Iron supplement tablets, Paracetamol tablets, Povidone - iodine solution and Ciproflaxcin hydrochloride (eye/ear drop), among others, did not meet the quality standards during the test.

Questions over the quality of medicines have been arising in different periods of time but there were no researches to back up the debate; the council then decided to conduct a research about the quality of the medicines.
While the medicines were tested in lab for their quality, researchers performed some tests in the medicine stores of the health institutions and regional stores where they recorded the temperature and humidity of the room the medicines had been stored in.
As per the conclusion of the research, health institutions and regional medicine stores were not abiding by the medicine storage guidelines fully. The report of the temperature and humidity recorded in the room backed the conclusion of the research.
The standard states that the room temperature of a medicine store should be between 15 to 25 °C, but the temperature of the stores in health institutions ranged between 19 to 37 °C and that of regional stores ranged from 30 to 37 °C.
Similarly, while the humidity of a room where medicines are stored should be less than 60 per cent, researchers recorded 40 to 86 per cent humidity in the stores of health institutions and 61 to 77 per cent humidity in regional stores.
Experts say that not meeting the temperature and humidity standards in medicine store can affect the efficacy of the medicines and may result in side effects in consumers.
“If the medicines not stored properly for a long time are consumed by a patient, they may cause long-term effect on the consumer’s health. Government should be more concerned about it because having proper storage facility is vital in a country like Nepal as temperature and humidity vary with topography,” said Shasikant Chaudhary, president at Nepal Pharmaceuticals Association.
Since the report of the research was made public in the presence of senior Health Ministry and NHRC officials on Friday, researchers and the council anticipate the ministry to take necessary action so that all the medicine stores across the country comply with the standards of medicine storage guideline.
“If the medicines are not of proper quality and are not stored as per the necessary standards, they may cause more problems in consumers’ health. It is the responsibility of the government to ensure the distribution of quality medicines as well as their proper storage,” said Chaudhary.