Uganda’s National Drug Authority has admitted that it knew HIV and Aids medicine was being used to fatten up animals in 2014 but did not warn the public.
The regulator’s senior drugs inspector Amos Atumanya told parliament it became aware antiretrovirals were being given to pigs and chickens to treat them, admitting that consuming small quantities of the drugs in food could be dangerous for humans
The NDA has, however, since tried to downplay his comments with a spokesman saying that if there was a health risk it would have warned the public, adding that the NDA’s job was to regulate drugs not food or animal feed.
A recent report by the prestigious Makerere University found that more than a third of chicken and fifty percent of pork sourced from markets in the capital, Kampala, and the northern city of Lira, that was tested contained traces of anti-retroviral drugs.
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