By Executive Editor

Officials of the National Drug Authority (NDA) this morning informed Parliament’s HIV Committee that although they knew about farmers feeding and treating their animals with ARVs, the matter wasn’t made public for fear of raising alarm and impacting Uganda’s economic earnings from animal exports abroad.

The MPs became concerned that consuming animals fed on ARV drugs might contribute to the development of resistant viral strains in newborns due to exposure to suboptimal doses of ARVs in food and may also lead to the unintended consumption of these drugs, which may have unforeseen health consequences for humans such as adverse drug reactions, including hypersensitivity.

Jenifer Alanyo (UPDF Rep) castigated NDA for concealing such information from the public and also rejected arguments fronted by NDA that when some drugs are consumed by animals, their effects on human life are minimized during the cooking, saying experts from Makerere University revealed that the heating of drugs increases their toxicity.

“You earlier on said that NDA knew about the presence of ARVs in chicken and pigs between 2013 and 2014, and when you knew about this, you clearly said you didn’t want to alarm the country. Did you think at any point that this would come out, and did you think about the community and citizens of this country in regard to the effects of this drug? Alanyo said.

Credit: Parliament Watch