Turkish drug coding 'should be extended to veterinary drugs'

Turkey's traceability scheme for pharmaceutical products should be extended to include veterinary medicines, says a leading health official.

Mustafa Yildiz, the chairman of the medical association of Sakarya Baytar county near Istanbul, says the measure should be taken to prevent over-use of veterinary medicines in livestock used to provide meat and milk products, as this can have negative health effects in consumers.

"By doing so we will be able to track veterinary medicines through the supply chain from producer to the farm and the individual animal receiving the drug," he added, saying this would help prevent medicated animals being used for food purposes.

While there are already regulations in place to prevent this happening, the electronic system - based on the use of a serialised 2D-barcode identifier similar to that already deployed in Turkey for human-use medicines - would make the process more efficient and reliable and reduce the workload for vets, who have to notify the authorities manually at present.