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Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The National Medical Stores-NMS will generate at least 100 Billion Shillings from the new warehouse.
The new warehouse is located at Kajjansi town council, Wakiso district. It is being constructed by China National Complete Plant Import and Export Corporation Ltd. Currently, the NMS uses the warehouse in Entebbe.
Construction of the warehouse cost 70 Billion Shillings with funding from the government and the Global Fund and Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI).
Speaking on Tuesday, during the on-site monitoring of the new NMS warehouse, Moses Kamabare, the General Manager NMS said that they expect to generate 100 Billion Shillings from the new warehouse, up from the shillings 50 billion it currently generates from the warehouse in Entebbe.
According to Kamabare, NMS will offer warehousing services to private institutions.
Kamabare says that the warehouse will cope with the increase in drug stocks and requisitions.
According to Kamabare, construction of the warehouse was supposed to be completed in 2020, but the delays were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. He explains that the Chinese involved in the construction works could not travel back to Uganda due to travel restrictions.
He however says that construction will be completed by end of this year.
The warehouse at Entebbe has limited space, with some medicines being stored in the corridors. It has a storage space of 8,000 pallets, while the new warehouse will have a storage space of 30,000 pallets.
The cold chain unit at the new warehouse will also be five times bigger than the one at Entebbe. The unit is where vaccines for COVID-19, polio, HPV and Ebola are stored.
The new warehouse will also have an oxygen plant where 100 cylinders will be filled per shift and a laboratory for testing drugs.
Kamabare says that the oxygen plant will produce oxygen for government facilities in the event their oxygen plants are overwhelmed or not in use. NMS will also sell oxygen to private entities.
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