Cambodia orders to crackdown on unlicensed pharmacies

PHNOM PENH, Feb. 22, 2010 (Xinhua News Agency) -- Phnom Penh authorities have given pharmacy owners until the end of this month to complete their license forms or face closure, local media reported on Monday.

Deputy governor Mann Chhoeun said that governor Kep Chuktema last week ordered all district governors to review the status of all pharmacies in their districts.

He added that City Hall has long urged pharmacists to complete required forms before starting a pharmacy but many had failed to do so.

"It is time that they have to respect the rule of law, and we have to develop our city," he was quoted by The Cambodia Daily as saying.

Chhoeun said that there were 644 pharmacies in the capital, 116 of which had not completed the required paperwork.

According to World Health Organization (WHO) officials, about 2. 5 percent of all medicine sold in Cambodia is counterfeit or substandard, and a major challenge for the government is to inspect the thousands of unlawful medicine outlets in Cambodia, the daily said.

William Mfuko, WHO technical officer for essential medicines, was quoted as saying that the challenge lay in upgrading the unlicensed pharmacies through training, quality control and regulation rather than in cracking down, which was unlikely to work as high demand for medicine was creating the unlicensed shops.

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