On Thursday last week, health Minister Obadiah Moyo told Senate that drugs being sold on the streets were very dangerous.
He said most of the drugs being sold on street are fake. He was responding to a question from Matabeleland South Senator Bekithemba Mpofu (MDC Alliance) on government policy relating to prevention of smuggling or importation of fake drugs into the country, as well as measures government is taking to stop such medicines from being sold on the black market. Said Moyo:
We encourage people to stay away from buying medicines on the streets because it is very dangerous, but you find people continuing to do so. At times, these counterfeit medicines might not even be effective because they can fill up the capsules with ashes and you think you are taking proper antibiotics when you are not. They can even fill up the capsules with powdered paracetamol, and you will feel some pain relief because of the paracetamol and think that it is an effective antibiotic. Those are fake medicines and they are medicines which are not supposed to be given willy-nilly. Medicines have to be prescribed and we have to be absolutely careful on what we ingest as humans in terms of medicines. It must be the correct medicines
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