In a ward at a village health centre in Mandera District, Fardosa Issack, 38, lay on a bed having been diagnosed with a life threatening bacterial infection.

The facility’s pharmacy had run out of the drugs prescribed to treat the condition.

“A medic asked me to buy the prescribed drugs from a specific chemist in town. But the drugs had run out of stock,” he painfully recalls. Her only hope lay across the border in Ethiopia. And when relatives crossed to Ethiopia they came back with the drugs.

The drugs were marked “GOK — MOH not for sale.”

“We were not surprised because it was not the first time to buy our Government drugs on the other side of the border,” she says.

The drugs are openly sold in private chemists across the border in Somalia and Ethiopia with the full knowledge of authorities.

During our investigations, the CCI team found eight clinics in Ethiopia border town of Suftu and seven in Somalia border town of BullaHawa openly selling the drugs. In Somalia, drugs can be purchased by either crossing the border or using drug peddlers calling themselves ‘dhakhaatiirta aan xuduuda lahyn’ (doctors without borders). The peddlers also administer drugs to patients though some incidences have often turned fatal. Early this year, an eight-year-old boy in Olla location in Rhamu Division died after he was injected by an Ethiopian peddler.

Buying Across The Border

The drugs CCI team bought in Somalia and Ethiopia include: Clotrimazole vaginal tablets, Gentamicin injection, Sclapen vein, Amoxicillin tablets in a tin, Hydrocortisone injection, Mebendazone and Micronazole oral gel.

We also purchased surgical gloves at Sh150 and dextrose 5% B.P at Sh180 in Ethiopia. All are clearly marked that they are not for sale and should be on prescription by registered medical practitioner only. In Suftu, for instance, a clinic displayed drugs bearing GoK-MOH-NOT FOR SALE” mark.

A lanky man behind the counter told our writer: “It is a trusted trade mark. Drugs from Kenya are highly trusted because they are reliable.”

CCI interviews with leaders, hospital staff, security officers and other sources found out that the sale of the Kenya drugs across the border is the norm in this region.

“Drugs mostly targeted are antibiotics, anti-tuberculosis, anti-malarial, X-ray films and insecticides treated nets,” a health worker at Mandera District Hospital who sought anonymity fearing he would lose his job says.

So enriching is the illegal trade that the wealth acquired by members of the drug cartels is simply known as ‘Amoxicillin wealth’. Amoxicillin is an antibiotic widely abused by the community here.

The drug trade is driven by some store men, pharmacists and medics in government health facilities across the region.

“They collude with a group of idlers in hospitals nicknamed Jabweyn, Somali for big pocketed, are often used as brokers. They hang around purporting to be looking for manual jobs to offload the drugs that arrive,” another health worker at Mandera District Hospital says. “The cartel involves brokers from the neighbouring countries, medical staff and idlers found in hospitals,” says Mandera County Council Chairman Mohammed Adan Khalif.

“Stealing of drugs had gone unabated forcing the District Hospital Management Board to deploy two police officers at the District hospital in 2004,” Khalif who was a member of the board between 2003 and 2005 says.

He says the reason drugs cannot be accounted for is that no board has been in place since 2006.

One Man Show

“Some rural health facilities are run by a single nurse or a community health worker. They don’t have committee members. The drugs are in the hands of individuals who can be tempted to do anything with them,” he says.

“Some of the drugs sold across the border come from as far as Mwingi and Machakos in neighbouring Eastern Province,” a nurse says.

Former Mandera District Medical Officer of Health (MOH) Dr Bashir Mohammed at one time submitted the names of some jabweyns he wanted barred from the health institution to the officer commanding Mandera Police station (OCS). They made a comeback after the MOH was transferred. Mandera Police Boss Odhiambo Okello says complaints of the sale of drugs outside the country have not reached him.

“In 2007 we had reports that there were drugs being stolen from hospital but investigations didn’t come up with concrete evidence,” he says. “I will use my contacts in Somalia and Ethiopia to establish how the GoK drugs end up there,” Odhiambo says.

The District Criminal Investigation Officer Boaz Obetto says he is not aware of the complaints. “Our hands are full weighed down by the recent internecine clan wars,” Obetto says.

Last May, during a tour of his constituency, Mandera West MP Mohammed Mumad was accosted by constituents who complained that drugs in their nearby health facilities were being sold to Ethiopia.

From Dandu to Gither, Lulis to El-Danaba, residents complained government drugs were sold across the border. Mumad promised to investigate the allegations. Mandera DC Isaiah Nakoro, however, said the health facilities had enough drugs and asked residents to stop complaining. The Mandera Hospital Superintendent Dr. Mohammed Adow declined to comment.

North Eastern Provincial Medical Officer (PMO) Dr Osman Warfa says sources of the drugs in the black market could also be from other areas.

“We carry out impromptu checks and some facilities are well run. We can’t rule out that some officers collude to sell the drugs,” Dr Warfa says.

“Our hands are tied if the drugs are in Ethiopia or Somalia,” he says. “We seize drugs suspected to be counterfeit to establish if they are registered. Even our national office carries out impromptu raids without our knowledge,” he says.

Source: The Standard

By Adow Jubat and Boniface Ongeri

 

Government is unaware

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