Ministry sets up Sh300m lab to test cosmetics, herbal medicines

The Government has set up a Sh300 million laboratory to test cosmetics and herbal medicines to ensure their safety and effectiveness before they are allowed into the Kenyan market.

Dr Obadiah Naikuni, the director of quality at the Pharmacy and Poisons Board (PPB), said the project would also test food supplements.

Also to be tested at the facility are radiation-emitting substances, medical devices, and tobacco products.

Naikuni said the board aims to enhance surveillance to ensure products entering the Kenyan market are safe to use.

“The available testing laboratories do not have such capacity as the new facility has now,” said Naikuni.

The director said the laboratory, housed at the PPB headquarters in Nairobi, will be used for the chemical, biological, biochemical, physiological, and pharmaceutical evaluation of the products.

Pharmaceutical products

"By so doing, we will be going a step further to tame fake pharmaceutical products that may harm the population," Dr Naikuni said.

He added: "The laboratory will test both locally manufactured and imported medicinal substances to ensure that all substances approved for the market are safe, efficacious, and of high quality."

The laboratory, which becomes the fifth directorate of the board, was established upon recommendation by an inter-ministerial task force of November 2009.

Subsequently, the board approved the establishment of the Post-Market Surveillance Laboratory captured in its 2014–2019 strategic plan.

The role of testing drugs, cosmetics, supplements, and other substances was undertaken by the Kenya Bureau of Standards.

"We have recruited highly experienced analysts to run the laboratory and they are still undergoing further training," Naikuni said.