Patients across Zambia who were prescribed and took the recently recalled 75MG aspirin tablets risk suffering from stoke and heart attack in the short term.
Pharmaceutical Expert Jerome Kanyika says individuals (patients) who consumed the recalled aspirin are likely to suffer a stroke or heart attack, as those are some of the early implications of taking re-called medication, which may be sub-standard or counterfeit.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with the Zambian Business Times – ZBT, Kanyika, who is also former Pharmaceutical Society of Zambia President said that when one takes medication which they are not supposed to or is substandard, it turns into poison and can have long-term implications like cancer, impotence, kidney failure and liver damage
When asked about why the affected consumers are not tested and given remedial medicines, Kanyika said that there is a system challenge in Zambia when it comes to tracing who actually consumed the recalled medicines or drugs.
These are some of the failures of our current medical system, members of the public who have already consumed, in this case, the recalled aspirin can’t be traced because Zambia does not have a system of knowing who has and has not accessed a particular medicine.
“All medicines are chemicals and the aspirin that has been recalled is a drug that is designed for people who have problems with their heart pumping blood or blood clotting. These patients are given this type of aspirin medication to make the blood thin so as to prevent blood clots from forming in order to ease the pumping of blood”, he said.
Imagine now that they were given these sub-standard aspirin? There is need to follow through by testing them, assessing the impact and taking corrective measures.
“It’s unfortunate that the country’s health system has been failing for some time because what is supposed to happen is once medicine is recalled, consumers are supposed to be traced and monitored to see the effects of the medicine, but in the absence of such a system, these people can’t be located, we have no electronic files for our patients”, he said.
He mentioned that according to the Medicines and Allied Substances Act, any pharmaceutical company that is involved in supplying sub-standard medication needs to be penalised or have their license revoked. But is this happening?
When asked why ZAMRA keeps having medicines being recalled while the responsible companies are simply asked to replace the recalled medicines with no compensation to individuals who took the sub-standard drugs?
Kanyika told ZBT that “It is clear that some of the staff working at these regulatory authorities [ZAMRA] are covering up for these pharmaceutical companies! otherwise we would not be seeing all these cases where medicines are being recalled”.
“We are in the covid-19 pandemic era and the use of medicines has increased, some people are buying vitamins so that they can boost their immune system and as the pharmaceutical industry, we are supposed to be professionals and tell people what is going on with some of these medicines on the market but its unfortunate we are the ones risking the lives of the public”, he said.
The Ministry of Health was on 25 January, 2021 confirmed through a media statement that they are in receipt of correspondence from Zambia Medicines Regulatory Authority (ZAMRA) dated 7 December, 2020 in which they directed the International Drug Company of Zambia to urgently recall Aspirin 75MG Tablets USP Batch No ET-905 manufactured by Wintech Pharmaceuticals Limited of India from circulation.
Concerns have arisen as to why no punitive measures are being meted to drug and pharmaceutical companies who supply sub-standard drugs which are later recalled. After recall of the counterfeit drugs or sub-standard medicines, it seems like no tracing and monitoring of patients is being done.
And efforts by ZBT to get a comment from ZAMRA proved futile by press time. The ZAMRA team was consistently stating that they are in meetings.
