By Spy Uganda
The woes surrounding Marie Stopes Uganda are not yet over after two people dragged the medical facility to courts of law for vending defective Life Guard condoms, which led them into contracting deadly Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs).
The two are Joseph Kintu, a resident of Nakaseke district, and Suleiman Balinya, a resident of Ibanda district, who decided to sue Marie Stopes for negligence of duty, which endangered both their lives.
Kintu said he tested HIV negative on June 20, 2019 and on September 29th, 2019, according to records at Namusale Health Centre II, but he later tested positive on November 6th, 2019, and claims that he got infected after a Lifeguard condom he was using, which he had bought at Eron Pharmacy in Nakaseke district, burst during sex.
On his part, Balinya says that he contracted Gonorrhea after using Life Guard condoms which he bought from one of the pharmacies in Ibanda municipality.
According to the information at hand, on September 17th, 2019, Marie Stopes Uganda, the sole importer and distributor of Life Guard condoms, rolled out two batches of Life Guard condoms, to wit batch numbers 19040205 and 19050105.
However, during post-market surveillance officials from the National Drug Authority (NDA) discovered that the said condoms had been illegally put on the market and upon testing them they were found to be defective, many of those tested had holes and high burst properties.
Since then many complainants Ugandans who had gotten affected after using Life Guard condoms started coming up to file complaints against Marie Stopes and the company has since been sued for negligence vide civil suit number 63 of 2020 of the High Court.
Two of the plaintiffs, Kintu and Balinya, allegedly contracted STDs including HIV after using Life Guard condoms, and accuse Mariestopes of rolling onto the Market defective condoms for public use.
Dr Amon Aruho Kategaya, a medical legal consultant with Enforcement of Patients and Health Workers Rights (EPHWOR), a patient and Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) centred Non-governmental Organisation (NGO), avers that organisations that are involved in importation of drugs owe a duty of care to the final consumers and ought to follow all the prescribed laws and guidelines to ensure quality, safety and efficacy of the drugs they import, short of which if these drugs cause foreseeable damages to the consumers then they are liable.
The two complainants, who want Mariestopes to pay over Shs500m in damages, are represented by a network of NGOs known as Patients Voice Network (Pavon) and four law firms; Ojok Advocates, Kasenene & Co Advocates, Silicon & co Advocates and S. Kasasa & co Advocates want Mariestopes.
What NDA Says
In a letter dated January 20, 2020, and signed by David Nahamya, the secretary to the Authority, the NDA said that “Upon importation of the said Life Guard condoms, the importer forwarded samples to the NDA quality laboratory for testing. The condoms were found to be defective and the Mariestopes was informed accordingly and was further instructed to destroy the batches of condoms.”
The letter also said that when NDA was carrying out its post-market surveillance they discovered that defective condoms were on sale to the public.
Statement From World Health Organization
However, it has been discovered that the company that manufactured the said condoms has since been suspended by WHO/UNFPA from supplying male latex condoms.
According to the letter dated January 31, 2020, from the United Nations Population Fund, MHL Healthcare Ltd, an Indian company, was suspended from the list of prequalified manufacturers for Male Latex condoms.
The letter further indicated that the condoms convened were tested by ISO 17015 accredited laboratory and they failed to meet the performance requirements.
The letter reads in part thus; “…..the test report shows conformances recorded for airburst and freedom from holes parameters…….”
However the Ugandan state Minister for health at the time, Hon. Sarah Opendi, in a statement issued to Parliament in November last year, said that the investigation into the matter of the defective Life Guard condoms on the market was ongoing and that they were going to apprehend the culprits. But what shocks most Ugandans is that since then no one has ever been arrested.
Marie Stopes is one of the leading NGOs in Uganda that undertake a range of Sexual and Reproductive Health services which entail importation and distribution of condoms as a family planning method. Their Moto is Children by Choice, Not by Chance.
