A study conducted by LocalCircles, a community Social Media platform that encourages citizens to strive for policy changes, found that 7% of the participants fromKarnatakaended up wasting 50-70% of the drugs they had purchased in the past three years, whereas 9% did not use 30-50% of the medicines they bought some of them expired and had to be thrown away.
Drug wastage, to a great extent, can be avoided. For instance, 47% of the participants from Karnataka attribute it to chemists selling a higher minimum quantity than what is required. E-pharmacies also sell a higher minimum quantity than what is needed.
These strips will have manufacturing and expiry dates on each segment, making it easier to sell the remaining medicine and avoid wastage. The possibility of printing QR code on each tablet is also being explored.