China publishes draft proposal on veterinary drugs to seek advices

BEIJING, Jan. 31 (Xinhua) -- China has published a draft proposal on veterinary prescription drugs and non-prescription drugs to enhance drugs supervision and promote their clinical use.

The draft, including 17 clauses, was written by the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) and has been posted on the website of Legislative Affairs Office to seek public feedback.

The MOA intends to categorize veterinary drugs into prescription and non-prescription types, according to the draft.

The draft also proposed rules on selling prescription drugs. Prescription and non-prescription ones should be sold separately and the prescription drugs should not be sold through open-shelf and picked up casually by customers, it said.

In addition, veterinarians with licenses should follow the rules made by the veterinary departments at county level when they give prescriptions on veterinary drug. Assistant veterinarians with licenses could prescribe at registered places in the countryside.

People could submit their suggestions by email before Feb. 29 to the address provided at Chinalaw.gov.cn .