A Fake Medicine Is No Medicine: A Time To Save Precious Lives

Health is paramount to the development of any nation. A healthy nation is a prosperous nation. A good nation puts the health of its citizens first in ensuring that there are legal functional institutions to cater to the health of any Kenyan citizen.

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “it is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.” Truth is, he who has health has hope; and he who has hope has everything. A life without health is like a river without water. The bottom line; health is the SI unit to a better and prosperous life.

For years, the health sector in Kenya has been branded “the ailing health sector.” Numerous medical practitioners’ strikes, high costs of accessing quality health services coupled with inadequate personnel and equipment are some of the challenges the sector is facing.

In the midst of all these challenges and suffering among Kenyans, there are those who are reaping big through the medicine sector. Ever heard a common phrase that “the sick sector is the richest sector in Kenya”? Yes. There are people who are making a killing by selling medicine in Kenya.

Selling medicine is not a crime. People making money from selling medicine is not a crime either. It is worrying, however, that there are Kenyans who are selling fake and unregulated medicine to unsuspecting Kenyans.

Truth is Kenyans have so much faith in pharmacies that they rarely question the type of medicine they are given. Capitalizing on this overwhelming trust that Kenyans have in them, some pharmacies sell medicine that instead of helping save lives, fasten the process of death.

It is high time we realize that sub-standard medicine kills. It is like any other poison. As the Kenyan public, we have a right to a dedicated medicines regulator. We cannot just stand aside and watch generations being wiped out through the consumption of fake and substandard medicine.

The truth is there are many pharmacists who are operating illegally across the country. This means that they are also selling illegal medicine. Illegal medicines can kill. As someone rightfully put it, “a fake medicine is no medicine, just when you are at your sickest.”

Time has come for us to make sure that all our medicines are regulated by medical experts. The United States of America and Tanzania, for instance, after realizing that their Food and Drug Authorities were total failures, they disbanded them. They formed separate medicine and food regulators.

Tanzania, before disbanding the TFDA, it was spending 13.2 billion shillings annually with over 266 employees, and the government still reported that it had aggravated the food and health sector challenges due to duplicated roles with the Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS). TFDA was dissolved this year (2019).

The United States incurred double costs in food regulation by funding the Ministry of Agriculture one billion dollars with 9,200 full-time employees while at the same time the FDA spent $1.3bn and employed 5,000 full-time employees.

Even so, rising health complications were reported due to drug approval errors and food contamination, while endless cases of irrational agency divisions of responsibility, corruption, and food recall marred the authority and have, likewise, led to its closure.

Why are we wasting precious funds forming mixed-up authorities that don’t work? Why are we forming authorities that don’t even know their rightful mandate? Why can’t we just strengthen the already existing bodies, known to deal with medicines and empower them?

We need to know that access to high quality medicines saves lives.