The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Uganda National Bureau of Standards-UNBS has blamed the clash by the business community and the authorities over standards of goods on the lack of knowledge on the existence of the regulations.
The Bureau says it has developed more than 3,600 standards on products that are both produced locally and those that are imported. This is meant to ensure that all products on the market do not affect human health and that the consumers have enough confidence in the purchases.
According to UNBS, traders need to get the standard related to the product that is to be produced or imported, before they start the production of anything. But even with this in place, manufacturers and importers continue to lose their products for violating standards.
UNBS public relations officer Joselyn Biira Mwine says the standards are developed on demand and that a manufacturer can request the Bureau to develop a standard for a product.
However, some manufacturers and importers say that people who deal in these kinds of goods know what is required, but deliberately bypass the regulations to outcompete the genuine dealers by setting low prices. This came up during an interaction between the standards body and the manufacturers, importers and distributors of protective medical gear, mainly gowns, surgical and examination gloves and clean air suits on Tuesday.
Apart from examination or surgery, these items are meant for different tasks including handling of chemicals that can be dangerous to life if mishandled, hence the various standards applied. All these are used for the prevention of germs, viruses and other substances from being transmitted between the medical personnel and the patient according to Lydia Nayiga, a standards officer at the UNBS.
The standards include packaging and labelling of the product, indicating the manufacturer, country of origin, date of manufacture and batch, among others.
The standards are aimed at ensuring that the gowns, gloves and air suits are made of materials that cannot easily burst or allow liquids to seep through. Nayiga says that this is so because most of the contaminates in such environments move through liquids like blood.
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