Pharmacies in Telangana to collect details of customers buying

The Telangana government has issued instructions to all municipal commissioners and additional collectors of districts to ensure that medical shops and pharmacists collect phone numbers of customers who buy medicines for fever, cough and cold-symptoms similar to COVID-19.

In a memo, Principal Secretary-Municipal Administration and Urban Development Arvind Kumar said it has been observed that due to "hesitation and perceived social stigma", people suffering from fever orcold symptoms which might be similar to coronavirus are approaching the medical shops directly on their own and asking for fever medicines.

"It is imperative that in a proactive manner we follow up on these cases which are having fever and other such symptoms which might be similar to those of coronavirus.

We should be able to contact these patients and get a test conducted depending upon the symptoms," it said.

Kumar instructed the officials to convene a meeting with all medical shops and pharmacists including respective associations and instruct them to necessarily take the contact address and phone numbers of customers who approach them to buy these medicines.

He further asked the officials to get the list from the pharmacies and maintain a directory of all such cases and get the tests done on cases which are having symptoms.