Govt tasks medicine suppliers on quality

HEALTH

Suppliers of medicines and other pharmaceuticals should ensure quality and elimination of counterfeit drugs on the market, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health, Dr. Diana Atwiine has said.

According to Atwiine some medical suppliers are money minded and sell medicines which they cannot prescribe to there relatives.

"Gives us medicines that you would take and would want to be prescribed to your children. It's not about profits. While you want to make profits, you should know that you serve humanity," Atwiine said.

Atwiine made the remarks at the Joint Medical Store (JMS) third supplier conference with local and foreign suppliers at Speke Resort Munyonyo on Thursday.

The meeting is part of JMS 40 years' anniversary. 

Atwiine said the health sector is highly fragile and calls for ethical, equitable and transparent transaction from manufacturers, suppliers and the regulator, National Drug Authority (NDA).

"We want you to join hands with NDA and government to minimize the inflow of counterfeit drug which is still a big threat. Stop the mechanical escalation of prices of medicines. When you do that, the supplies of essential medicines are affected," she noted.

She recollected while still head of State House Medicine and Health Services Delivery Monitoring Unit, they found a pharmaceutical company that was re-packaging expired sceptrin.

Atwiine implored JMS to expand and scale up the manufacturing capacity and turn there min-laboratory into a major laboratory.

JMS executive director, Dr. Bildad Baguma said the government had earmarked sh500m in the next financial year's budget (2019/20) for expansion.

He said JMS has established in-house quality control measures evidenced by the acquisition of an ISO certification.