Drug Abuse Amidst COVID-19 Pandemic: A Dark Side of Online Pharmacy

Author Info

Avinash Chandra Ayush Chandra

Corresponding Author

Avinash Chandra
Annapurna Neurological Institute and Allied Sciences, Nepal

A B S T R A C T

Online pharmacy has been in the focus of heightened interest during this lockdown period due to COVID outbreak in Nepal and worldwide. This paper explains the issues relevant to online pharmacies that sell drugs with or without prescriptions to patients at the retail level online (through software apps or website). The online pharmacy industry has shifted its target abruptly during this pandemic period in developing as well as developed countries. The various aspects of online pharmacy practice are listed within this article. Issues like access, prescription, availability, misuse, and lack of awareness among the patients are described. The challenges and opportunities are discussed as well as the necessity of rules and regulation for online pharmacies on country level are elaborated. A proper advice to the patients and proper monitoring of online pharmacy should be offered for proper and safer way of purchasing drugs. The zero tolerance to the misuse or abuse of prescription and non-prescription drugs should be practiced.

Article Info

Article Type

Short Report

Publication history

Received: Sat 09, May 2020
Accepted: Fri 05, Jun 2020
Published: Mon 15, Jun 2020

Copyright

© 2023 Avinash Chandra. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Hosting by Science Repository.
DOI: 10.31487/j.DDA.2010.01.01