Health Minister waiting for report on expired drugs

THE Zambia Medicines and Medical Supply Agency (ZAMMSA) has failed to give the Minister of Health, Dr Jonas Chanda a comprehensive report on the people who procured drugs with a short shelf life.

Last month, Dr Chanda took ZAMMSA to task over the large number of drugs expiring in the storage stations when health facilities were experiencing shortages.

He directed ZAMSA to give him a comprehensive report within three days, detailing why essential drugs were expiring without being distributed on time and the end-users ended up getting medicines with a short shelf life. When contacted yesterday, Dr Chanda said he had not yet received the report from ZAMMSA, which was formerly Medical Stores Limited.

Meanwhile, ZAMMSA acting managing director Chipopa Kazuma had attributed the expiry of drugs at the facility to over-procuring and treatment regime changes, among reasons.

“There are a number of reasons why medical products were expiring in a facility like this, there are times when they are over-procured, there are times when regiments change and therefore expiries will happen.

“Sometimes there is a mismatch from the information we get from the facilities and what they need so you have a product like this that expires and yet it’s needed. So what we do from our side, we try to reach out to facilities even for products that are about to expire, but we can only go that far,” Mr Kazuma said.