As many as 145 drugs samples were identified as not of standard quality (NSQ) during the month of February.

“For the month of February, The Central Drugs Laboratories have identified 52 drug samples to be NSQ. The State Drugs Testing Laboratories also found 93 drugs samples as NSQ,” said the Union Health Ministry on Friday.

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As per routine regulatory surveillance activity the list of NSQ drugs are being displayed on CDSCO portal on monthly basis, it said.

The Ministry said that the identification of drug samples as NSQ is done based on failure of the drug sample in one or the other specified quality parameters.

The failure is specific to the drug products of the batch tested by the government laboratory and it does not warrant any concerns on the other drug products available in the market, it said.

“Salient feature of this month’s NSQ reporting has been the continuous increase in participation of States in reporting NSQs to the central database. Increased reporting of NSQs/spurious identifications from states to central databases will further help in improving availability of quality medicines in the country and beyond,” the Ministry said.

The action of identifying NSQ and spurious medicines is taken on a regular basis in collaboration with state regulators to ensure that these drugs are identified and removed from the market, it added.