Mchinji District Hospital last Thursday destroyed expired drugs and medical supplies worth K28 million which it received from donors and purchased from the Central Medical Stores Trust (CMST).
The drugs were destroyed at the hospitals dumping site in the presence of officials from the district hospital, district council, Treasury, police and Pharmacy Medicines and Poisons Board, among others.
Mchinji District Hospital public relations officer Owen Chataika said it was ideal to burn the expired drugs because they were deemed poisonous for human consumption. He said apart from the expired drugs, the hospital also disposed of regiments of Sulphadoxine Pyrimethatrine (SP) and Lamefantrine Artemether (LA) which were no longer recommended for use.
The hospital burnt pain killers, injections as well as anti-retroviral, tuberculosis and malaria drugs. According to Chataika, most of the burnt drugs were donations from development partners which came in large quantities but only had a year to expire.
