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Kenya: Country Can't Test Malaria Drugs
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The East African Standard (Nairobi)
25 April 2008
Posted to the web 24 April 2008
Obote Akoko
Nairobi
Kenya does not have the capacity to approve, register and review applications for new drugs.
Dr Obar Ogutu from the Kenya Medical Research Foundation Institute says the country still relies on foreign institutions to approve imported drugs.
Addressing lecturers from local universities and medical training colleges in Kisumu, on Thursday, Ogutu said Kenya lacked facilities to test the efficacy of drugs.
Ogutu said this often led to delay in withdrawing ineffective medicines.
He cited the case of 'Lapdap', an anti-malaria drug, which was found to destroy blood cells in some users.
The manufacturers took long before announcing its withdrawal from the market.
Ogutu also launched a new anti-malaria campaign aimed at improving diagnosis and management of the disease.
The campaign is sponsored by the US Presidential Malaria Initiative under the Division of Malaria Control in the Ministry of Health.
The three-year programme will impart new skills on microscopy and other techniques of malaria diagnosis in public hospitals and training institutions.
"Kenya has made big strides in reducing mortality rate by 44 per cent in the last few years," Ogutu said.
World Malaria Day will be marked today in Oyugis, Rachuonyo District.
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He added that priority had shifted to improved diagnosis as a vital tool for further lowering the death rate.
He said the many deaths were due to poor clinical management of severe malaria cases.
Dr Jeffrey Clark, from the Walter Reed project, said the continued threat of malaria was due to unchecked environmental modifications, agricultural development, immigration from malaria-prone areas, deforestation, increased anti-malaria drug resistance and resistance of mosquitoes to insecticides.
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