Alarm over banned drugs still on sale

Drugs banned in Kenya are still available in pharmacies.

The Nation managed to buy some of the drugs in Nairobi’s central business district, Thika Town and Kayole in the outskirts of the city.
The Pharmacy and Poisons Board, which had denied that the medicines were in circulation, has appealed to Kenyans with information on the illegal drug imports to alert its officers.

According to the board’s registrar, Dr Kipkerich Chumo Koskei, several medicines from Aglowmed EA-India were deregistered early this year because they were sub-standard.

Registration certificates

“The drugs registration certificates were recalled in March and the importers told to remove them from the market at their own cost.

We are not issuing any import licences for these products and if any are coming in they are doing so illegally,” Dr Koskei told the Nation on Thursday.

An inspector at the board, Dr Jacinta Wasike, said a team visited Aglowmed’s factory in India in November last year and found that some of its manufacturing processes failed the minimum standards. “Another team is in India and it will re-inspect Aglowmed and if it meets the standards, it may reapply to register its drugs,” she said.

The board was reacting to a Saturday Nation article, which quoted an audit report by the Efficiency Monitory Unit claiming that some drugs were in the market even after failing to meet set manufacturing standards.

“The secretariat usurped the role of the Practice Committee by issuing drug registration certificates for drugs that had failed National Quality Control Laboratory tests or their application for registration had been rejected by the committee,” the audit report said.

The board officials on Thursday said they were implementing the report with the help of a Medical Services Ministry taskforce.