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Fake Drugs a Deadly Menace
Editorial
Published: Daily Nation
Date: April 30, 2002
Website: www.nationaudio.com
The Kenya Medical Association's alert over fake drugs must send shivers down the backs of all Kenyans, considering that health is not a negotiable issue.
The question is: Does anyone in the Ministry of Health care? There are perennial complaints over sub-standard drugs. Yet nothing ever seems to get done.
Indeed, Prof Bill Lore told a Kenya Medical Association conference in Eldoret at the weekend that only four of 30 malaria drugs on the market had passed a laboratory quality check. He went as far as to suggest that some dealers were dispensing chalk in the name of drugs.
It is not so much that there are no regulations governing the standards for all kinds of products and equipment in Kenya. It appears to be more of little or no surveillance or some unscrupulous people deliberately looking away as Kenyans are fleeced.
The characters behind the racket also appear to enjoy an uncommon freedom to get on with their business undisturbed. If the medical fraternity is fully aware of the bogus drugs, it is just as certain that the regulators and law enforcers are also in the know.
It is not enough that Ministry of Health representatives should sit at such conferences and bemoan the scandalous wheeling and dealing over essentials like drugs.
Kenyans need a clear sense that the Government is in charge here and that all known cases of sub-standard drugs will be dealt with ruthlessly.
While we are at it, the role of the Kenya Bureau of Standards in ensuring that only the correct quality drugs reach the consumer should be investigated. Where are its inspectors and technical staff when these drugs are being sold over the counter?
Kenya's consumers have long been left at the mercy of confidence tricksters who are out to make a killing - often literally. Complaining is not enough. Let's see prosecutions going forward.
Copyright ©2002, Nation Media Group Ltd. All rights reserved.
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