The mushrooming energy drinks on market might affect the health of Ugandans if they are not controlled, MPs have observed.
Kasambya County MP, Gaffa Mbwatekamwa raised the complaint during yesterday’s plenary sitting, noting that no one knows the contentin the energy drinks and thus you cannot know whether they are safe or not.
He asked the Ministry of Trade to avail Ugandans with a list of certified energy drinks that are good for human consumption.
“The lives of Ugandans are being threatened by the so called health energy drinks so many from different manufacturers who take advantage of Ugandans and they are selling these products whose contents we don’t know,” said Mbwatekamwa.
Minister of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives, Amelia Kyambadde told Parliament that the Ministry is aware of the health drinks on the market as they are working with ministry of health but requested to be given up next week to report on the matter.
“We are aware of the health risk [of the many energy drinks]; we are working closely with the Ministry of Health because they are the ones to clear them first. We have actually certified some; I will come with the list that have been tested by Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS),” Kyambadde said.
Speaker, Rebecca Kadaga gave the Minister up to Tuesday next week to report back to Parliament with a list of certified energy drinks.
The development comes at a time when a consumer lodged a complaint in January 2019 with the National Drug Authority (NDA) that Natural Power SX energy drink, caused him an erection for nearly six hours, a condition that left him experiencing an abnormal heart beat and constant sweating after taking the drink.
Following the complaint, NDA forwarded the matter to UNBS for further investigations since it has no mandate to regulate energy drinks.
Natural Power SX is an imported energy drink manufactured by a Zambian company known as Revin Zambia Ltd and an earlier test conducted by NDA on the samples found some adulterations on the drink.
“Following the complaint, NDA sampled the product (batch number E66C and expiring on 30th August 2019) from Mega Standard Supermarket on 30th October 2018 and subjected it to full monograph analysis using a method adopted from USP. The results obtained indicated that the product was adulterated with Sildenafil Citrate,” NDA says in a December 2018 letter that was received in January 2019 by UNBS.
