NEW DELHI: India has asked the Chinese government to take action against bootleggers who are making fake drugs and shipping them abroad with `Made in India' tags as a tactic to cover the origin.

The commerce department has lodged a complaint with the Chinese embassy here and the Indian embassy in Beijing has been asked to push for action against the impostors.

The Indian action comes after Nigeria's pharma regulator reported the detention of a large consignment of fake drugs for treating malaria. The consignment carried `Made in India' labels but was produced in China. A laboratory test of the consignment of Maloxine and Amalar tablets proved these were fake. Had the drugs flowed into the market, over 600,000 lives would have been affected.

After getting information from Nigerian authorities, the Indian high commissioner in Nigeria indicated that the consignment containing drugs were produced, packed and shipped from China. Fake Chinese drugs with `Made in India' tag hurts reputation of Indian pharmaceuticals industry and is expected to give rise to more trouble for genuine Indian consignments to Africa and elsewhere transiting through Europe.

The government is making efforts at brand promotion of Indian pharmaceuticals and generic drugs in Africa. An Indian delegation recently met African health ministers and officials to assure them that genuine Indian generic pharma was as safe as patented versions and was available at more reasonable prices.

The African ministers were also informed that the Indian government had launched a massive offensive against manufacture and sale of spurious medicines. Drug Controller General of India regularly conducts on-the-spot inspections and lift samples at random. A study of samples of drugs tested all over the country in the last 4-5 years revealed that about 0.3% to 0.4% of around 40,000 samples fell within the category of spurious drugs.