In our daily life, medicines are very common. Friends who often go to pharmacies to buy medicines may find that some medicine boxes only have the Chinese medicine standard on them, and some medicine boxes have ” OTC” logo, and there are two kinds of OTC with red and green background colors, what is the difference between the two?
Drugs are generally divided into prescription drugs and according to safety Over-the-counter medication.
Prescription drugs are drugs that can be purchased, dispensed and used only with the prescription of licensed physicians and licensed assistant physicians.
With the progress of the times, in order to facilitate citizens to purchase prescription drugs, the state has issued “Internet Hospital Management Measures”, “Internet Diagnosis and Treatment Management Measures”, and “Three Documents for Telemedicine Management Service Specifications” three files. Pharmacies can cooperate with online hospitals, and citizens can conduct online consultations on the online hospital platform, and can purchase prescription drugs at pharmacies with electronic prescriptions.
Over-the-counter (OTC) is characterized by safety, effectiveness, Convenient and economical, OTC drugs have undergone years of clinical testing before being put on the market, and have been widely recognized by consumers. Among them, the OTC whose background color is red is Class A OTC, which must be purchased and used in a pharmacy by a licensed pharmacist or under the guidance of a pharmacist. OTCs with a green background are Class B non-prescription drugs, which are safer and can be purchased and used without the guidance of a doctor or pharmacist
How do you tell the difference between prescription and over-the-counter medicines?
Method 1: The OTC logo printed on the medicine box is an over-the-counter medicine. And the medicines with the approval number without OTC logo are all prescription medicines.
Method 2. The instructions of prescription drugs will read “Please read the instructions carefully and use under the guidance of a doctor”, while the description of non-prescription drug instructions is “Please read the instructions carefully and Use as directed or purchase and use under the guidance of a physician.”