China's pharmaceutical watchdog plans to put all essential drugs on a national digital monitoring network by the end of the year, in a move to step up drug management.

The network would cover 307 drugs on the country's essential drug list and involve more than 3,500, or 70 percent, of companies producing pharmaceuticals in China, said Wu Zhen, deputy director of the State Food and Drug Administration (SDA), at a forum on drug management Tuesday.

The digital network would monitor the entire process of the manufacture, transportation, storage and sale of drugs. It would also enable realtime inquiries into inventories and destinations, Wu said.

By assigning each package of medicine a unique code, the administration could use the network to track and recall drugs easily, said Wu.

The government launched the essential medicine system in August last year and an important part of the system is putting all essential drugs under digital monitoring.

Essential medicines are those that satisfy health care needs and are available to the public at all times in adequate amounts and in appropriate dosage forms, and are capped at a price the public can afford.

All companies producing the essential drugs should be covered by the network by March 31 next year, Wu said.

The SDA has been gradually developing the use of the network.

The government had already incorporated into the network narcotic drugs, blood products, vaccines, traditional Chinese medicine injections, and some psychiatric drugs, involving 586 production companies and about 13,000 wholesale companies, said Wu.

(Xinhua News Agency August 4, 2010)