Online drug tracing system in the pipeline

China will accelerate the building of an online drug tracing system for vaccine, anesthetic drugs and psychoactive drugs to ensure the safety of pharmaceuticals, the China Food and Drug Administration said on Nov 1.

The tracing system will also include generic drugs and medicines that are included in the medical insurances, said a guideline issued at the administration's website.

The tracing system will keep accurate record of the drugs and trace their production, distribution and usage, to prevent the use of illegal drugs and ensure unsafe medicines can be recalled as soon as possible, it said.

The manufacturer, seller and user of drugs should build drug tracing system and submit accurate and complete data to supervising authorities, the guideline said.

Local food and drug authorities should strengthen the supervision on drugs and hold those who have failed to build such system accountable, it said.

Chinese authorities handed out penalties totaling more than 9.1 billion yuan ($1.32 billion) to Changchun Changsheng Life Sciences Limited for the illegal production of a human rabies vaccine in October.

The company violated China's laws and regulations on drug management and production supervision in producing a human rabies vaccine, including blending different batches of vaccine fluid, falsifying dates of production and using expired fluid to produce some of the batches, according to administrative penalty decision made by national and local drug authorities.