India, Oct. 2 -- Maharashtra's public health department will for the first time use counterfeit drug-detection devices to conduct primary screening of medicines stocked at government healthcare facilities across the state, health minister Prakash Abitkar said on Wednesday.

The initiative is aimed at strengthening surveillance of medicine quality and detecting suspected counterfeit or substandard drugs at an early stage. Independent teams will visit healthcare facilities across the state's eight divisions to screen medicines in stock, officials said.

The department will train a separate team of pharmacists to operate the devices. The first phase, covering training and primary screening, is expected to be completed within three months, of...