Proposal to create vet drug authority elicits mixed reactions

Dec 11, 2019

Technocrats have warned that repealing and enacting laws that are not based on proper scientific and institutional scrutiny will disrupt trade

Of recent, there has been a lot of debate on the regulation of veterinary drugs in the country. This followed a Cabinet decision seeking to scrap the National Drug Authority (NDA) and replace it with two separate regulatory bodies — one for human drugs and the other for veterinary drugs. This development has stirred a storm, with several stakeholders saying it is not in public interest.

The campaign is led by the state minister for animal industry, Joy Kabatsi and seeks to scrap NDA and replace it with two authorities — the National Human Drug Authority (NHDA) and the National Veterinary Drug Authority (NVDA). This implies that the National Drug Policy and Authority (NDPA) Act Cap 206 would be repealed.

This proposal was hastily passed by Cabinet without proper consultations and the input of key stakeholders, including technical persons in the medical and veterinary sectors. This is the culmination of a longstanding battle the minister has been fighting with NDA ever since she was appointed in the docket, a development that further deepened the rift between veterinarians and other professions over veterinary drug regulation. The issue was first brought to Cabinet in 2017.

This came at a time when the country was facing a wave of acaricide resistance, which Kabatsi was blaming on presence of fake veterinary drugs, but NDA strongly denies it. Two Cabinet committees have so far looked at the matter, with the first having been chaired by the First Deputy Prime Minister, Gen. Moses Ali, and the most recent one (2019) by the Prime Minister, Ruhakana Rugunda.

Whereas the technical committees came up with recommendations with input from the agriculture ministry, health ministry and NDA, Kabatsi went ahead and pushed for the Cabinet approval for the new Bill against the recommendations of the two committees.

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