Panic as common Malaria drug recalled due to health risk

gloria mari

December 14, 2017 4:52 PM

The drug was manufactured in China.

A commonly used anti-malarial drug, Duo-Cotecxin is set to be recalled from the Kenyan market after failing quality control tests.

The health ministry announced the troubling news after investigations by The Nation, Code for Africa Impact which revealed that the drug failed the test which makes it substandard.

The drug samples were bought from a chemist in Nairobi and are manufactured by a Chinese firm Zhejiang Holley Nanhu Pharmaceutical Co.

They expire in May 2018 and will still be in circulation which creates a grave risk to consumers.

Health cabinet secretary Cleopa Mwilu said that the batch number 160621- would be used to call back all the drugs. He also blamed the quality control debacle on the manufacturer.

The lab analysis was conducted by the Drug Analysis and Research Unit and Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry- University of Nairobi.

This news comes barely a month after a recently released World Health Organisation report showed that one in every 10 medical products in underdeveloped and developing countries such as Kenya are substandard, falsified and people are taking ineffective medicines.