Union Health Ministry mandates QR codes on certain medicines
India
Big update from the Union Health Ministry: soon, certain medicines will need QR codes on their packaging.
This move is all about making it easier to track medicines and spot fakes, especially for vaccines, narcotics, psychotropic drugs, and anticancer medicines, with a deadline of July 1, 2027, while antimicrobials have a separate deadline of July 1, 2028.
Scannable QR codes verify medicine authenticity
These QR codes will hold details like batch numbers, manufacturing and expiration dates, product IDs, and licensing information.
Anyone in the supply chain can scan them to check if a medicine is legitimate.
The goal is to protect people from counterfeit drugs and help fight antimicrobial resistance by catching faulty products early.