Speaking at a press conference in Beijing yesterday, Zhang Wenzhou, deputy director of the State Drug Administration (SDA), said the nation's druggists should play a more active role in fighting the presence of fake and inferior medicines in the market and providing appropriate medical advice to patients.

The press conference came just ahead of this year's "Chinese Pharmacists Week," which will kick off on June 3.

The special week, designated in 1998, aims to enhance social responsibility and professional skill among China's pharmacists through lectures, seminars and activities dealing with the distribution of medicine.

This year's theme is: "The Law on Pharmaceutical Administration, Care about People's Health."

As part of the campaign this year, every pharmacist in China is being urged to study the revised Law on Pharmaceutical Administration. Drug providers are also being encouraged to take an active part in the nationwide effort to explain scientific drug-taking methods and knowledge about medicine to the people.

Additions to the law, which was originally written in 1985, will take effect on December 1 this year.

The revised law pays more attention to strengthening supervision over the quality of medicines and to safeguarding people's legal rights when it comes to health care and medication.

The law calls on all pharmacists working for drug producers and distributors and for medical service units to make a concerted effort to remove fake and inferior medicines from the nation's drug shelves.

Latest statistics from the SDA indicate that 5.4 per cent of the 102,000 batches of drugs inspected last year failed to meet quality standards, a drop of 1.6 percentage points compared with the previous year.

Of all antibiotics tested, 3.4 per cent failed to meet SDA requirements.

Chinese herbal medicines were the biggest losers, with 20.2 per cent falling short of standards.

In addition, druggists are also expected to do more work in offering advice to doctors and patients, said Cao Wenzhuang, director-general of the SDA's Department of Drug Registration.