By STEVEN ZANDE –
THE Zambia Medicine Regulatory Authority (ZAMRA) intends to engage lawmakers to help formulate stiffer penalties on people operating illegal drug outlets.
ZAMRA medicine control director Zuma Munkombwe said, despite sustained efforts to stop illegal drug stores, some unscrupulous people had continued selling drugs without following standard procedure, thereby endangering the lives of unsuspecting members of the public.
“This is because when we take the perpetrators to court, they are given lenient charges which they easily pay and return to the trade. But this is a public health hazard,” Dr Munkombwe said.
He said according to the law, the maximum penalty for operating an unregistered drug store was K900, 000 while the minimum charges were too lenient to deter new offenders.
Dr Munkombwe said the law should be stiffened so that the penalties could ensure people did not return to the trade and that the authority would also dialogue with drug wholesalers so that they could stop supplying drugs to illegal dealers.
He said this in an interview in Lusaka yesterday shortly after launching a two-day capacity building workshop for local pharmaceutical manufacturing companies in a bid to strengthen adherence to regulation among them.
Local pharmaceutical firms should help the Government in sealing the loopholes that sustain illegal drug stores as these individuals sell drugs without prescription.
Dr Munkombwe said the Government would also be introducing a Statutory Instrument that would compel drug manufacturers to appear before the courts of law for distributing drugs to illegal dealers.
He said the workshop which had been facilitated in partnership with the European Union (EU) would share best practices with drug manufacturers so that they could improve their production.
Dr Munkombwe said sharing developments with pharmaceutical companies would further help players in the industry provide affordable and effective drugs to the population and contribute to actualising the Government’s desire to achieve a healthy nation.