Unscrupulous traders are employing all manner of trickery to profiteer from patients’ misery in total disregard of any moral and legal obligations that they are supposed to observe.
As investigations by this newspaper have established, the problem of fake drugs is much more widespread than just the one malaria tablet that was tested at the University of Nairobi’s drug analysis and research unit.
The Ministry of Health must move quickly to deal with the menace of fake drugs on Kenyan pharmacy shelves.
The sub-standard drugs are putting the lives of thousands of patients at risk every day.
By Health secretary Cleopa Mailu’s own admission, a commonly used anti-malarial drug, Duo-Cotecxin, does not have the right combination of ingredients it claims to have on its packaging. That means the drug is sub-standard, or fake.
A patient relying on the drug for Malaria treatment is likely to suffer a long and painful recovery or even die, depending on the severity of their sickness and the strength of their immune system.
Even one person dying from the use of fake pharmaceutical drugs is one too many, and that is why all the enforcement agencies under the Health ministry must move with speed to arrest the problem.
Unscrupulous traders are employing all manner of trickery to profiteer from patients’ misery in total disregard of any moral and legal obligations that they are supposed to observe.
As investigations by this newspaper have established, the problem of fake drugs is much more widespread than just the one malaria tablet that was tested at the University of Nairobi’s drug analysis and research unit.
For instance, some pain and fever medication that were banned globally nine years ago are among the drugs that are still freely available in Kenya’s ubiquitous pharmacy shops.
Use of these drugs was seen to cause fatal liver damage and has never been approved in some Western countries due to safety concerns. Some fake tablets have been known to be made purely from corn starch, potato starch or chalk, without any medicinal value.
Yet these somehow find themselves on so-called licensed pharmacies, having inexplicably passed quality tests by multiple government agencies that are supposed to police the sector.
Besides the issue of outright fakes, there is also the problem of mixing of drugs in sub-standard and unhygienic facilities.
These would be hard to detect with the naked eye, yet they are equally if not more fatal when consumed.
The relevant State agencies must step up to stop more deaths and suffering from the fake drugs.
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