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Thursday, November 3, 2022
Calls for the need to focus on local manufacturing of medicines and
Vaccines.
President Yoweri Museveni has this afternoon commissioned the
new National Medical Stores pharmaceutical warehouse and office
complex in Kajjansi, off Entebbe Road.
Speaking as the chief guest, President Museveni commended the
Ministry of health as well National Medical Stores for the complex
which he said would solve some of the challenges faced by the
sector.
“I want to congratulate the Ministry of health and NMS for
constructing this good warehouse, it is a good one, it solves the
issue of storing well and in big quantities,” he said.
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The President used the platform to castigate the theft of
government drugs in hospitals which he said should be dealt with
as it deprives the people of Uganda their rights to access drugs in
hospitals.
He noted that the government is committed to getting out of the
dependency syndrome in as far as drugs and vaccines are
concerned. The President placed emphasis on increased efforts to
locally manufacture drugs and medicines in order to have a robust
and cost-effective health system in the country.
On public health, Mr. Museveni advised the Ministry of health to
focus on disease prevention rather than treatment in hospitals,
adding that most of the diseases are preventable.
He saluted the development partners for the support in the
building of the magnificent storage.
The Minister of Health, Hon. Jane Ruth Aceng noted that the new
complex is a demonstration that the government of Uganda is
committed to improving medical supplies in the country. She
thanked the President for his continued support to the health
sector.
The US Ambassador, H.E Natalie Brown, thanked the President
and the government of Uganda for the commitment in improving
the health services in the country. She said that the completion of
the new complex is a big milestone in the health sector.
GAVI CEO, Dr. Seth Berkeley underscored the power of
partnership saying that working as partners will be a great deal in
achieving desired goals.
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The Chairman Board of directors NMS, Dr. Nathan Mucunguzi
said that over the years the Mandate, and volume of Essential
Medicines and Health Supplies, handled by National Medical
Stores has increased resulting in the need to expand storage
capacity at the central level to manage the growing supply chain
demands, hence the Construction of this new warehouse.
National Medical Stores undertook construction works of a modern
pharmaceutical warehouse and office complex at Kajjansi site at a
cost of around 69 billion Uganda Shillings.
The new warehouse project in Kajjansi will improve the storage
capacity with additional 30,000 pallet locations of warehouse
space, which is almost four times the current capacity at Entebbe
NMS headquarters.
The new NMS pharmaceutical warehouse is also a green building
with installation of energy-efficient solutions like the use of solar
energy to run the building and natural light instead of artificial
power-consuming bulbs.
National Medical Stores (NMS) is a government agency mandated
to procure, store and distribute Medicines and medical supplies to
government owned health facilities.
Story and all Photos by PPU