Page 63 - 2020Taiwan Food and Drug Administration Annual Report

technology, to discuss the technical details and administrative regulations of NPS urine testing.
Moreover, the “Regulations Governing Accreditation and Management of Drug Abuse Urine
Testing and Medical Institutions´ ZDV DPHQGHG WR HQKDQFH WKH UHJXODWRU\ ÀH[LELOLW\ DW WKH HQG
RI WR IDFLOLWDWH WKH WHVWLQJ FDSDELOLWLHV DQG VSHHG XS WR REWDLQ WKH FHUWL¿FDWHV IRU LQVSHFWLRQ
institutions.
TFDA has established a Drug Abuse Reporting System (DARS) to receive information
through drug abuse cases reported monthly by healthcare facilities in the country, to obtain the
epidemiological information of drug abuse cases in the nation.

II. Management and reporting of approved institutions for drug abuse urine

tests
As of the end of 2019, there were totally 16 approved institutions for drug abuse urine tests
and designated testing institutions in the country. The approved testing institutions will regularly
submit the inspection results to TFDA Urine Test for Drug Abuse Reporting System (UDARS)
on a monthly basis. The routine performance monitoring for the approved institutions will be
conducted every season, and 64 times combined for the approved institutions in 2019.

,,, 1RQ XULQH 'UXJ WHVWLQJ DQG UHSRUWLQJ XSRQ GUXJ DEXVH
According to the division of labor in drug testing of the Ministry of Justice, there are 11
institutions in Taiwan at present to help prosecution, police and investigation authorities test
non-urine specimens for drug abuse. In accordance with Article 9-3 of the “Enforcement Rules
of Narcotics Hazard Prevention Act,” each of the testing institutions regularly report the illegal

drugs testing results to TFDA UDARS, then TFDA collects the statistical data on a monthly
basis, including the positive results of non-urine specimens in suspicious drug and controlled
drug cases; the statistical data can be used as a reference for TFDA and all departments to
stipulate illegal drug prevention strategy.

$FKLHYHPHQWV DQG %HQH¿WVFKLHYHPHQWV DQG %HQH¿WV
$
I. Reporting situation of drug abuse at healthcare facilities
The analysis data of DARS showed that there were 34,195 cases in total reported for drug
abuse by healthcare facilities in 2019. The top three types of drug abuse case number included
heroin(16,981, 49.7%), (meth)amphetamine(13,038, 38.1%) and ketamine(1,760, 5.1%).

Compare with the data of drug abuse reporting in 2018, the percentage of (meth)amphetamine
reporting decreased from 39.6% in 2018 to 38.1% in 2019. It showed that the government had
achieved results in (meth)amphetamine control.

61