National Drug Authority wants drug shops out of Kampala

The National Drug Authority-NDA has started phasing out drug shops from Kampala.  Dona Kusemererwa, the Secretary National Drug Authority disclosed this at a press briefing at the government owned media center Wednesday morning.

According to Kusemererwa, by 2017 there were 478 pharmacies licensed to operate in Kampala. Each of the pharmacies is expected to serve at least 3,172 going by the current population of the city of 1,516,210 people according to the 2014 Population Census.

Kusemererwa says under the new policy, all drug shops located close to pharmacies, will be asked to relocate to other areas where there are few pharmacies. According to the National Drug Policy Authority Act, a drug shop is supposed to be located in a distance of not less than 1.5 kilometers from a Pharmacy.

Kusemerewa says to address mismanagement of pharmacies and improve pharmaceutical service delivery, no new drug shops will be licensed to operate in Kampala and other municipalities.  She also says they will license new pharmacies in private hospitals in Kampala and those that will not have been licensed by the end of this month will be asked to close.

In 2017, NDA issued licensed 1,752 pharmacies over 8,000 drug shops across the country.  Kusemererwa decries a number of village clinics, which operate as drug shops and vice versa.  She however, says the Authority is coming up with a registrar's forum to contain the problem.

David Nahamya, the Director of Inspectorate and Enforcement at NDA said they will ask the drug shop owners to relocate them voluntarily.