THE Health Professions Authority Zimbabwe (HPA) and Medicines Control Authority Zimbabwe (MCAZ) have finally paid attention to the sprouting of dubious companies offering free full body scans, especially in the Harare CBD.
Fliers by some of these herbal companies, which operate on Zinatha licences, suggest they also exist in the other cities like Bulawayo and Gweru.
As a way of attracting clients, these herbalists decided to offer free full body scans as a way of getting them to then buy herbs to treat all sorts of diseases that would have been detected by the “free scans”.
At the weekend, the MCAZ and HPA in a joint statement urged members of the public to shun the Free Body Scan services saying it poses a serious risk of misdiagnosis and mistreatment to the public.
“In conjunction with the Zimbabwe Republic Police, the two Authorities will be undertaking investigations and confiscating all such offensive equipment as well as prosecuting the persons operating the said machines illegally,” the statement said.
“At the same time, the medicines will be confiscated (both registered and unregistered) from unlicensed persons and unlicensed premises.”
They added that the sprouting of unauthorized use of dubious magnetic resonance machines was also being used by unqualified and unauthorized personnel, who then proceed to prescribe and sell medicines (both conventional and complementary) for chronic conditions to the unsuspecting public.
These groups of people selling herbs have been using all sorts of tricks to waylay unsuspecting people, especially the elderly and those from low income groups.
The proliferation of the unregulated herbalists grew during the Covid-19 pandemic and the situation seemed to have normalised when the lockdowns were lifted. People were now free to move around and returned to the public clinic and hospitals for help.
A number of the herbalists from the Covid-19 era then went underground while others even skipped the country and are wanted for fraud.
Two years later a new method of getting unsuspecting members of the public to buy these herbs was devised and resulted in the flooding of streets by untrained youths soliciting for clients.
These untrained youths would be given commission based on the number of clients they brought and the money realised from those clients.
And it became very clear that they had a specific target market as these agents would always go after the elderly, and even waylay them as they left banks on the days known for pension ‘collection’.
These agents became a nuisance on the streets and the public started complaining, especially on social platforms for the authorities to act.
It seemed as if the concerns did not reach the people in charge and the joint statement at the weekend came as a huge relief.
We now hope that the authorities will proceed and sanction the wrongdoers while protecting the vulnerable members of the public.
Better late than never!