The speaker of parliament Rt. Hon. Rebecca Kadaga has lashed at Ugandan medics for bashing her pronouncement on capacity for Uganda to produce drugs as a home-grown solution to the CODIV-19 pandemic.
Kadaga says UMA should have contacted her about the information on the said products that destroy coronavirus, instead of bashing her statements as baseless.
In a special sitting of parliament yesterday, Kadaga told MPs that a Ugandan bio-chemist, Mathius Magoola is teaming up with an American professor Safraz K. Niaz, to manufacture a product that instantly kills the coronavirus. Kadaga said the product would be on the Ugandan market in a fortnight.
The pronouncement has since sparked a backlash from a section of Ugandans who say the purported professor lacks capacity, and just taking the leadership in Uganda for a ride.
In a press conference held on Tuesday, the president of Uganda Medical Association (UMA) dismissed Kadaga’s pronouncement saying her claims are unfounded, and it gives false hope to Ugandans which could be dangerous since it diverts the population from the known preventive messages.
The medics also described Prof. Safraz as “a quack cadre scientist who desires to misinform the leadership of Uganda.”
They say, for any medicine to be deployed in Uganda, it must undergo vigorous tests for safety procedure, and the period must be a minimum of 18 months not a fortnight as Kadaga claims.
During a plenary sitting on Tuesday, Kadaga shot back at her critics saying they lacked information on the issue, and they should have consulted her for facts.
“I thought the officials from Uganda Medical Association had brains. They would have come to me and said you heard, you talked about this, can you tell us what it is…I don’t deal with quacks as being alleged through social media, and leaders of UMA. I also take issue with the latter for reporting to press conferences instead of a courtesy call to share their concerns” Kadaga said.
Kadaga said Prof. Safraz is coming to assist Uganda in setting up a company that will produce world class medicines, and his partner Magoola who has established two industries in Uganda already manufacturing malaria and cancer drugs. Kadaga said Magoola is not a quack, but she believes there are individuals who represent interests of other companies who are fighting the project.
She said she has been physically inspected the project and it is going to be the biggest pharmaceutical industry in Africa.
“I have also laid on table 5 technical books written by Prof. Sarfraz who is being insulted. He was the brainchild behind ‘Obama Care.’ My interest is local capacity to produce our own drugs instead of endless importation” Kadaga tweeted.
