FORMER Pharmaceutical Society of Zambia president Jerome Kanyika says it is too late to recall sub standard condoms and products because they have been used by members of the public.

The Zambia Medicines Regulatory Authority (ZAMRA) has written to Honeybee Pharmacy, directing them to immediately recall defective condoms and gloves which have been in circulation since September 2020.

This follows a humiliating appearance before the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee last week, Wednesday, where Medical Store Limited managing director Chikuta Mbewe admitted that Honeybee-supplied substandard condoms and gloves were distributed in September 2020, without conducting any quality assurance tests.

But commenting on this decision in a Facebook live video, Sunday, Kanyika said it was too late for a recall.

“A recall cannot be done this time; those products have been consumed by the members of the public. I have been wanting to sue Honeybee and the Minister of Health for them to subject the members of the public to such substandard medication while they knew from the word go that these drugs were not okay. The drugs reached at 14:00 hours and as you heard, at 08:00 hours [the following day], the Minister was there busy flagging off as if all the drugs were okay. Why was the Minister in a hurry to flag off those products? Because he knew something. Now you distribute in September, and these products were distributed countrywide, the people started using these products, each pharmacist, each health facility received these products. The only product that was quarantined was paracetamol. I don’t know nga ni bange (I don’t know if its drugs) people at ZAMRA are smoking,” said Kanyika.

“They heard very well that Medical Stores said we distributed everything and now these to members of the public. The members of the public have used these products and that was starting from three months ago the 3rd of September to date. The condoms move a lot in time for Christmas and New Year so meaning that people used these condoms a lot. And today you say we are recalling the products, what is that madness? ZAMRA should recall that statement, that’s mockery! I heard the Ministry of Health Spokesperson saying nothing was distributed. I think Dr [Abel] Kabalo should be ashamed of himself; he should resign on moral grounds. He and Dr Chilufya were saying we can’t supply substandard medication we supply quality medication. It is only here in Zambia where substandard medicines are on the shelves. How many died because of taking this medicine?”