54 arrested, 100 premises shut in crackdown on illegal pharmacies

The Pharmacy and Poisons Board, last week arrested 54 people and closed 100 pharmacies in five central region counties for operating illegally.

The counties are Kiambu, Murang’a, Nyeri, Nyandarua and Kirinyaga.

Some 100 premises were also closed and about 127 cartons of drugs were seized from the pharmacies.

The board’s crackdown was targeting unqualified personnel and unlicensed pharmacies.

The acting head of good distribution practices Julius Kaluai said the seized drugs will be produced in court as exhibit.

Kaluai said about 56 premises owners escaped after they got wind of their operation.

Closure notices were placed on all premises that operate illegally.

Closure notice is a government document which means one should not open until they fix their compliance issues and ensure the premises is re-inspected by the board.

He said the board has been in the Central region since Sunday.

“We have focused a lot on the suppliers of pharmaceuticals to retailers because that is where the problem starts and I think it's important to note this because the wholesalers should be ethical in their distribution,” Kaluai said.

He said these are the outlets that the retailers access the drugs from and the fight against quacks cannot be won without wholesalers having discipline in their practice.

“We have collected a number of invoices which we are going to submit to our higher offices for them to see how they are going to deal with distributors who sell drugs to unregistered outlets.”

The wholesalers are supposed to ensure a retailer is registered and the person selling and handling the medicine is qualified before engaging them.

On the issue of disposal of pharmaceutical waste, he said most pharmacies, including registered ones, have issues with disposal of expired or damaged medicine.

"There is a procedure in place to assist them on the processes of disposal and they should liaise with regional team to assist them to avoid using wrong methods," he said.

He said the fight is yielding fruit as cases of suspects arrested have reduced from by almost half.

He attributed the decline to the board’s engagement with other stakeholders like Judiciary, Kenya Police Service and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecution.

He also attributed the success to the registration and enrolment of professionals in the last five years.  The number has increased from 4000 to 12000.

“They are out there to serve the public and we are still training more,” he said.

Kaluai said the number of pharmacists has also shot up from 2000 to 3000 to 6000.

The central regional PPD head Tom Mwangi said all the court cases have been registered and proper follow-up will be done bring to justice those found guilty.