IMPORTANT SAFETY NOTICE – GLUCOMEN BLOOD GLUCOSE TEST STRIPS

The Isle of Man Office of Fair Trading wishes to make the public aware of a product safety notice issued by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in the UK in case anyone with diabetes in the Isle of Man is using the product concerned.

The MHRA is asking people with diabetes not to use certain lots of a specific type of blood glucose test strip because a fault in some of the strips may mean that people could overestimate the amount of insulin they need to take.

The test strips affected by the manufacturing fault are called the GlucoMen LX Sensor blood glucose test strips. They are used with the GlucoMen LX and GlucoMen LX PLUS blood glucose meter and they are manufactured by Menarini in Italy.

Just over 1.7 million test strips in the affected lots were sold to pharmacies in the UK between October and November 2012.

The manufacturing fault has now been resolved and there is currently no evidence that any patients in the UK have been adversely affected by any faulty test strips.

People can check if they have the affected test strips at home by looking for the lot numbers below on the tubs of test strips:

• Lot 3212219249, expiry date 31 August 2014
• Lot 3212214249, expiry date 31 August 2014

While they haven’t been sold in the UK since November 2012, it's possible that some of the unused faulty blood test strips may still remain in people's homes. People can get alternative test strips. Other lots of these test strips are not affected and they can continue to be used.