Board intensifies crackdown on illegal chemists in Nairobi
Thirty chemists in Nairobi will lose work licences for operating illegally despite an existing closure notice. They are also accused of defacing the closure notices and starting to operate as new entities.
The Pharmacy and Poisons Board (PPB) is pursuing the proprietors of the pharmaceutical outlets for arrest and possible prosecution.
Already 30 practitioners working in those pharmacies have been located and arrested following last Friday’s crackdown. Their merchandise was also seized, and are booked in Nairobi and Kajiado courts.
The Board’s head of Inspectorate and Enforcement, Julius Kaluai also confirmed that five wholesale dealers in pharmaceuticals were found to violate Cap 244 provisions, which regulates the manufacture, prescription and use of, and trade in, drugs and poisons used for human beings and animals and in agriculture and other activities.
“The investigations are underway to ensure arrest and prosecution of the owners as well as to revoke their licenses,” he said in a statement.
Further action will be taken against practitioners in the affected premises. They shall be subjected to disciplinary mechanisms at the Board as well.
Kaluai asked members of the public to authenticate whether such a premise that operates as a drug dispenser has been registered properly by checking its names and signage.
“The Board further guides the public that chemists bearing no names on display or signage are a key indicator to illegal pharmaceutical premises,” he noted.
