Pharmacies and Chemist Retail Outlets on a Nationwide shutdown.

Over 1500 pharmacies join a nationwide shutdown . The event occurred on May 20th , as part of a massive strike against unregulated online medicine sales. The strike was called in by the All India Organization of Chemists and Druggists to protect traditional pharmacies from severe losses. As the strike saw its way, initial decisions revolved around allowing emergency medicines to be made available to the public without any disruptions , however , 80% of the pharmacies undertook complete shutdown in the country. District secretary of AIOCD, Mr. Gopalakrishnan, pointed out the unsupervised online sales of medicines as well. He said that prescription is mandatory while physically buying medicines whereas , the same is not needed while buying them online , and that medicines are easily accessible without any questions or proper verification. This may also lead to threat of misuse of medicines for illegal purposes going forward.