A direct pharmaceuticals distribution system is expected to be in place in at least 90 percent of China’s counties and 80 percent of its administrative villages by the end of 2004. A comprehensive drug supervision network should extend to 60 percent of counties within the same period.

Zheng Xiaoyu, director of the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA), said Thursday that in the process of the economic system transformation, incomplete pharmaceuticals sales and supervision systems resulted in limited selection and high prices as well as to the spread of counterfeit drugs in rural areas.

He said that the establishment of drug supply and supervision networks is of vital importance for the safe use of drugs among the rural population.

The drug supply network will be based on a tendering system, with chain distributors as the main players. The network will cover all rural drug supply units.

A three-tiered network set up by the Beijing Drug Administration and consisting of supervisors at county level, drug coordinators at town level, and information staff at village level, is planned for drug supervision functions.

Trial versions of the supply and supervision networks were launched in June 2003 in Beijing, Jiangxi Province, Shaanxi Province and Chengdu City of Sichuan Province.

(Xinhua News Agency May 28, 2004)