DKI Health Office Deploys a Team to Pharmacies to Make Sure Banned Syrups Are No Longer For Sale

Photo by Nathaniel Yeo on Unsplash

JAKARTA - The DKI Health Office has dispatched tribal teams in five regions to health facilities and pharmacies to ensure they do not sell syrups containing ethylene glycol and diethylene glycol beyond the threshold.

"To ensure that the liquid medicines in question have been stored separately, or our language is quarantined, so they are not used first", said the Head of DKI Health Office, Widyastuti in Jakarta, Tuesday, October 25.

According to her, teams from the tribal health offices of each region have gone to hospitals, health centers, and pharmacies.

She explained that the quarantine of drugs with syrup preparations was carried out by placing them in separate places awaiting a decision from the authorities.

The Ministry of Health, he continued, had previously issued a circular temporarily not prescribing liquid drugs or syrups.

Meanwhile, regarding the results of the study by the Food and Drug Supervisory Agency (BPOM), which has allowed 156 syrup drugs to be prescribed, she continued, his party will adjust the latest policy.

"This is something new, for sure the dynamic policy issued by BPOM, issued by the Ministry of Health, has become our reference. Now that there is a new circular, of course, we will adjust it", she said.

Her party has also coordinated with professional organizations and associations of pharmacists and pharmacies for socialization related to the syrup.

Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Supervisory Agency (BPOM) said that five drugs containing Ethylene Glycol and Diethylene Glycol exceeded the threshold.

Meanwhile, 69 other drugs are still in the testing process. As of October 24, 2022, as many as 90 cases of acute kidney disease have been reported in Jakarta since January 2022.

As many as 49 percent of them died, the majority were under the age of six.