Pune FDA cancels licenses of two blood banks, suspends 12 firms

PUNE The Pune Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) has cancelled the licenses of two blood banks, suspended 12 firms and issued show-cause notices to 25 firms for violating various laws

PUNE The Pune Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) has cancelled the licenses of two blood banks, suspended 12 firms and issued show-cause notices to 25 firms for violating various laws.

The Pune Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) has cancelled the licenses of two blood banks, suspended 12 firms and issued show-cause notices to 25 firms for violating various laws. (REPRESENTATIVE IMAGE)

The two blood banks whose licenses were cancelled were located in Pune and Sangli districts.

Also, the FDA has been able to inspect only 35 per cent of the firms that they were aiming to inspect due to the second Covid-19 wave’s impact in the months of April, May and June this year.

SB Patil, joint commissioner, Pune FDA, said, “The licenses of the two blood banks were cancelled as they failed to meet the mandatory requirements like enough testing staff for blood testing, blood collection at the camps and also the nursing staff. They also did not have the staff for proper record keeping. While one of the blood banks is from Pune, one is from Sangli.”

“Apart from this, we have also suspended the licenses of five allopathic firms, three blood banks, two blood storage centres and one homoeopathic and cosmetics centre each. We have also issued show-cause notices to 25 more firms and are awaiting a reply,” he said.

Patil added that action was taken from April to September this year. “However, we could complete the inspection of only 35% of the targeted firms by September because we got to work only in the past three months due to the impact of the serious second Covid-19 wave,” said Patil.

Out of the 538 firms that are located within the Pune division, 278 were expected to be done by September 2021 but only 96 were done.