Kyenjojo: National Drug Authority Bans the Use of Tick Burn Drug over Counterfeit Allegations
By Mariam Namakula
The National Drug Authority (NDA) has banned the use of Tick Burn Drug in Kyenjojo District for allegedly being a counterfeit product that was causing havoc to many livestock farmers in the district.
NDA said tick burn drug was illegally placed on market for farmers and yet it had a lot of side effects to their livestock.
The decision for the ban was taken this week after surprise search operation that was done by a team from NDA led by Dr. Jeanne Muhindo Head of Veterinary Products National Drug Authority
According to Muhindo, apart from selling counterfeit drugs, the drug shops in Kyenjojo District were illegally operated with many of shops being run by unqualified veterinary personnel thus heavily impacting the farming sector.
“When we tested these drugs from the National Drug Authority Lab most of them were counterfeit. These also indicated that there are other agro chemicals that are always added into these drugs a thing that was a threat to the country’s livestock,” she said.
Adding that farmers were also over using drugs even in situations that needed improvement in hygiene and the sanitation around the live stock
“Animal medicine is like pediatrician medicine, you cannot prescribe a drug for an animal if you haven’t seen it physically so the challenge we have is that there is a lot of telephone medicine prescription when people have not looked at the condition,” Muhindo said.
Other fake drugs included; Lava and Dudu Force II
And the operation left three drug shops closed
Muhindo also noted that there was misuse of some drugs and chemicals in the district by the farmers and this had also caused a lot of negative impact to the livestock especially among some herds. In some it had caused “repeated breeding” thus not being able to give birth.
The team also revealed that the banning of the one product which was on market (Tick Burn), was due to the countless challenges that the drug had on livestock and that farmers should desist from using or else risk making loses in their farms.
“The challenge has never been in treating the infected animals but the continued resistance by the pest and diseases to the drugs which have made it harder to treat tick-borne diseases. These have instead develop into other challenges affecting the production of our cattle,” one of the farmers said.
Adding that a cow that was supposed to lactate thrice a year was now doing it once with a decrease of over seven litters of milk from the ten litters it used to provide.
This was mainly because the livestock was always struggling with the warms inside and the ticks when feeding.
Farmers however noted that, the challenge of counterfeit drugs had escalated due to the increasing demand for the veterinary services and yet there were inadequate numbers of qualified veterinary doctors.
This thus getting wrong prescription of fake drugs from unqualified doctors
In addition farmers also noted that the failure to acquire quality services had greatly contributed to the continuous loss of their livestock mainly due to the late detection of pests and diseases in their farms.
They therefore called upon the Authority to extend veterinary services up to the parish level for the easy access to the much needed quality services in the district.
The national drug authority has also started training of farmers, extension staff, veterinary drug dealers maintained at sensitizing the community on how to effectively use the drug and manage various pests
Other affected districts in the western parts of Uganda include Mbarara, Kiruhura among others.
