The government on Wednesday, October 2 urged the public to desist from using pain-relieving medicine over cancer claims.
The Pharmacy and Poisons Board (PPD) warned that heartburn medicine sold in Kenya as Zantac or Neotack was linked to cancer in the US.
The government thus urged the public to desist from buying or using the said medicine.
This comes after the board instructed pharmacies across the country to retrieve and quarantine all Ranitidine products sold in the Kenyan market.
Following the directive some wholesalers went ahead and wrote to their clients to return all products purchased, Daily Nation reports.
“In order to safeguard the health of Kenyans, you are instructed to carry out a level two recall of all ranitidine products from the Kenyan market,” read the circular shared by PPD Dr Fred Siyoi said in a circular
“In addition, you are required to submit to the board the details of all the products that you have imported into the country in the last three years,” he added.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in September disclosed that it had learned that some ranitidine medications, including those known by the brand name Zantac, contain low levels of N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA), an impurity that could cause cancer. NDMA is a possible cancer-causing chemical linked to liver damage.
To this regard, drug companies such as Novartis (through its generic division, Sandoz) and Apotex announced that they were recalling all of their generic ranitidine products sold in the US.
