An important drug, Ketamine Hydrochloride, will soon be back on the list of medicines allowed for use in veterinary medicine, says Ivan Rozhdestvensky, deputy head of the Agriculture Ministry's Veterinary Medicine Department, who spoke to the news Wednesday.
Ketamine had been used as anesthetic in veterinary surgery.
"The Agriculture and Health ministries have already issued relevant orders, which, I hope, will soon be followed by a government resolution allowing the use of Ketamine for veterinary purposes," he said.
Rozhdestvensky reminded that Ketamine was taken off the register of approved medicines for use in veterinary medicine in 1998.
Meanwhile, a representative of Russia's State Drug Control Committee Vasily Sorokin says that "the Ketamine now used by veterinary surgeons illegally, has been smuggled into Russia." He added that the amount of Ketamine used today shows there is a stable Ketamine-trafficking channel, by which it is delivered from Holland, Poland, Slovakia, India and other countries. It is difficult, however, to estimate the true illegal Ketamine turnover today.
