How to identify expiring date of imported medicines

Markings of expiring date of medicines imported from the U. S, Japan, Germany, England, Italy, Switzerland and Russia, etc are different. Here, some common ways of marking expiring date are to be listed as the following for reference.

(1) Expiration date Aug.30.1995. "Expiration" at the beginning means "end" or "expire", and the phrase means that expiring date (or expiration date) is August, 30th, 1995.

(2) Expiry：6/1996, i.e., the medicine expires on June, 1996, or its expiration date is June, 1996.

(3) EXP. date：MAR1996. EXP is the abbreviation form of "expiration", and the phrase means that expiration date is March, 1996.

(4) EXE DATE：7.Jan.1996. which means that the expiration date is January 7th, 1996.

(5) EXE DATE：15―12―95 or 15.12.95, which means that the expiration date is December 15th, 1995.

(6) Expiry：30V97, meaning the expiring date is May 30th, 1997.

(7) Expiry: DEC,20/96, meaning that expiring date is December 30th, 1996.

(8) EXP．date：10.97, meaning expiration date is November, 1997.

(9) Expny：3.06.97, meaning expiration date is March 6th, 1997.

(10) Expiration date：Two years from date of manufacture, which means that the product is to expire in two years from the date of manufacture.

(11) USE BEFORE：SEP．9.1996, which means that the product should be used before September 9th, 1996.

(12) Use by 1997.1, meaning that the product can be used till January, 1997.

(13) #最终有效95.10, which means that the product can be used till October 31st, 1995.

(14) There are two ways in marking expiring date of medicine made in Japan: one is the same as that in China, i.e., to mark in the order of year, month and day; the other is to mark in calendar of Japanese style, i.e., date of Japanese calendar, which is to be converted into the Gregorian calendar, with the conversion equation: Japanese calendar +1925＝the date in Gregorian calendar, with month unchanged. For instance, if the expiring date is December, 1970 in Japanese calendar, i.e., 1925+70, thus, the expiring date should be December, 1995.