NDA to close pharmacies without full time pharmacists
Feb 11, 2017
By June this year the National Food and Medicine Authority Bill 2017 will be put into law in order to regulate counterfeit drugs entering and going out of the country
National Drug Authority (NDA) is to close all pharmacies without full time pharmacists the authority's new board chairman has said.
Dr. Medard Bitekyerezo after being sworn in as the new chairman of the 6TH NDA board at the authority's offices in Wandegeya on Thursday said that the pharmacy business has been taken up by mere traders other than qualified pharmacists which has increased the selling of counterfeit and expired drugs on the market.
"Because traders have money, they have decided to use qualified pharmacists' certificates to run their pharmacies without the pharmacists regularly and physically supervising the pharmacies and they pay them big sums of money.
This then gives chance to the traders to repackage the expired drugs and sell them to the public because their business is to make money but don't have concern for health like the pharmacists, which brings about health problems" Bitekyerezo said.
He said that he is going to promote licensing of competent pharmacies that are regularly supervised by qualified pharmacists but not mere traders and any pharmacy that is found without a full time pharmacist will be closed.
Bitekyerezo said that he is also going to promote the importation of highly efficacious drugs at affordable prices from excellent quality drug manufacturers and vigilance in drug inspection by active, competent and highly professional inspectors in all regions around the country in order to curb counterfeit drugs coming into the country.
The Minister of Health, Dr Ruth Aceng, while officiating at the inauguration said that by June this year the National Food and Medicine Authority Bill 2017 will be put into law in order to regulate counterfeit drugs entering and going out of the country.
The nine man NDA board that includes Bitekyerezo as chairman, Dr. Ambrose Musinguzi, Dr. Grace Nambatya Kyeyune, Grace Akullo, Dr. Mahamed Mbabali, Dr. Yahaya Sekagya, Dr. Christine Ondoa as members among others was sworn in by the registrar of the High Court, Thadeo Asiimwe.