Govt to ban two drugs

Gatifloxacin and Tegaserod are likely to be banned in India due to serious side effects.

Gatifloxacin,an antibiotic widely prescribed for throat infection,and Tegaserod,a medicine for chronic constipation,are likely to be banned in India.

The sub-committee of the governments chief advisory body,the Drug Technical Advisory Board (DTAB),will meet on Thursday to recommend the ban. Both drugs have been withdrawn from the US market. Deanxit,which is used as an anti-depressant,is also under the scanner,but it may escape a ban.

The move to ban Gatifloxacin is significant as the drug has been found to lead to serious side effects. In a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine it was revealed that the risk of developing serious hyperglycemia was almost 17 times higher among elderly patients who took Gatifloxacin (Tequin,Bristol-Myers Squibb) than for those who took another antibiotic. In 2008,the Food and Drugs Administration of the US removed it from the list of approved drugs.

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In India,Gatifloxacin,belonging to a class of antibiotics called Fluoroquinolones,is prescribed by doctors for respiratory and throat infections as well as typhoid. More than a year after the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) Dr Surinder Singh decided to review the drug,the DTAB now seems all set to recommend the Health Ministry to ban it.

According to Dr Anoop Misra,Head of Department of Diabetes and Metabolic Diseases,Fortis Group of Hospitals,This drug can produce abnormally high blood sugar which could be dangerous for a patient of diabetes.

Tegaserod has been found to cause cardiac ailments in people using it. The drug has been banned in Europe.

The decision to ban the drugs,according to DCGI Dr Surinder Singh,is based on data available outside India. We have to bank on outside data to decide on the fate of the drugs. But it is necessary to take these steps. I am hopeful that things will improve in the next two years when we develop our own pharmaco vigilance programme, he said..

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