Pharmacy closure ordered after violations

A pharmacy in the Kingdom was closed down after authorities discovered serious violations related to selling of unlicensed drugs. The National Health Regulatory Authority (NHRA) shut down the pharmacy for three months after it found serious violations, it is learnt. The pharmacy was found to have been dealing with unlicensed medications. The NHRA also served the pharmacy with a one year suspension for its import activities.

“The steps were taken after the alleged violations were confirmed after an investigation. The violations were related to the import of drugs that are not licensed. “The pharmacy was found to have been in non-compliance more than once,” an NHRA official stated. Around 40 violations were found last year at the pharmacies in Bahrain related to selling, pricing and licensing of medicines. The findings follow close to 600 inspection visits by NHRA inspection teams in 2018.

One of the most common types of violation detected during NHRA inspections was medicine-related violations. The authority spotted 15 of them. Altogether NHRA spotted five types of violations which were recurring. The second most detected violation was related to pricing. NHRA found eight during visits.

Others were pharmacy set up violations (5), licensing violations (6) and temperature/ humidity/ fridge violation (6).