By Biketi Kikechi

Ineffective diabetes drugs are on sale, risking the lives of millions of Kenyans, The Standard on Saturday can reveal.

Assay tests carried out on samples of one of the drugs, Humulin, by the National Quality Control Laboratory, found the product was substandard.

The test was done after a patient, Mr Barnabas Bargoria, complained to the Ministry of Medical Services that he bought and injected ineffective insulin into his blood system.

"I believe that many Kenyans have suffered from such ineffective medication, might have even died and the same might have happened to me if it were not for the grace of God," he said.

Bargoria, who is a former Director of the National Irrigation Board, bought the drug in Eldoret.

A staffer at the chemist (name withheld for legal reasons) told The Standard on Saturday that they had received a demand letter from him but they were awaiting results of the samples taken by the Pharmacy and Poisons Board. He requested for a copy of the report the paper had received from Bargoria.

He said nine other patients bought the drug before Bargoria and none of them had complained. The proprietor of the chemist later wrote to us, threatening to sue if the paper published the complaint.

Bargoria said his sugar level was at 8 points when he administered the drug. The man who has lived with diabetes for 26 years measured the insulin level in the evening and found it had risen to 12, only to rise to 24 points the following day.

He went to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital for laboratory tests.

"The results I received were shocking because I was told the sugar level had increased to 26.5," he said. The situation was contained and he travelled to Nairobi to launch a complaint with Medical Services Minister Anyang’ Nyong’o.

The Pharmacy and Poisons Board took a sample of the drug, manufactured by Lilly Egypt Co in Giza Egypt, for tests where it was found not to meet specifications.