National Drug Authority (NDA) has conducted an intelligence led enforcement operation and arrested seven suspects that were vending drugs in open shift-markets of Bukhaweka and Butilu in Namisindwa District and Arapai in Soroti City.
The suspects that include Kisubi Jamada, Ali Matovu, Emmanuel Onyunyu (a medical laboratory assistant) and Mutawa Clemensia were found illegally displaying, selling, and advertising human and veterinary medicine under the scotching sun. Eleven boxes of assorted medicine including ARVs, Antimalarials, HIV testing kits, veterinary medicine and unregistered herbal products were impounded.
The suspects are currently held at Mbale District Central Police Station and Soroti Regional Police Station, their files have beer handed over to state attorney for prosecution
Drug hawking is not only illegal but also endangers public health and threatens the integrity of drug supply chain.
Hawking of medicine provides an avenue for impure drugs (counterfeits expired, repackaged, falsified and substandard) to get the public without the much-needed scrutiny of regulatory agencies like NDA.
The safety, efficacy and quality of drugs sold in open blaces, especially in shift markets, on transit buses and streets is uncertain because such drugs get exposed to varying extremities of weather conditions as drug hawkers move from one place to another.
Hawkers are mobile, it is therefore difficult to trace and take regulatory action in cases where the unsuspecting public consumes the hawked drugs and they get life-threatening drug reactions or no health benefit after taking the drugs as the vendors have no permanent place where they can be traced from.
According to Mr Abyaz Rwamwiri the NDA spokesperson Hawking of drugs can lead to treatment failures both in humans and animals as they are associated with either ineffectiveness or poor dosages as hawkers are not qualified to prescribe or dispense medicine.
This can also increase cases of people who die from preventable causes due to misdiagnosis and use of impure drugs We appeal to Ugandans to join NDA in fighting against hawking Pharmaceuticals and promote access to safe, efficacious and quality drugs by obtaining all their drugs from licensed drug outlets.
Rwamwiri says NDA operations are intended to deny the counterfeiters who use channels such as hawking from distributing impure products that are detrimental to our health
