The Sunday Mail
Sunday Mail Reporter
The US$25 million modern pharmaceutical warehouse under construction at Sally Mugabe Central Hospital will be completed next month ahead of commissioning in May.
Harare and Beijing signed an agreement for the construction of the warehouse when Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the country in December 2015, leading to the signing of agreements for 12 projects in key economic sectors.
The ongoing project is being funded through a grant from the Chinese government.
On completion, the warehouse will hold approximately 10 000 pallets of medicine.
The existing National Pharmaceutical Company (NatPharm) warehouse accommodates only nine pallets.
Responding to questions from The Sunday Mail, the Chinese Embassy economic and commercial office said the warehouse will have seven individual buildings.
“Currently, the pharmaceutical warehouse project is at the final stage of equipment installation, commissioning, outdoor landscaping and storing rack installation, with a total 97 percent of the work having been completed,” said the embassy.
“The total covering area of the project is around 43 000 square metres and its total construction area is about 13 700 square metres.
“After completion, it will be able to hold approximately 10 000 pallets.
“The project includes warehouse one with a 480 square metre refrigerating storage room providing temperature from 2 to 8 degrees Celsius, warehouse two, a power distribution house, a fire-fighting pumping house, a waste holding house and two guardrooms.
“In total, there will be seven individual buildings.
“Due to the impact of the pandemic, progress has been a bit slow. However, we still have confidence that the project can be completed by April and handed over in May of this year.”
The current NatPharm warehouse was inherited from the Rhodesian government in 1980.
The new warehouse is anticipated to make recording, storage and stock-taking easy.
In addition, its systems will be computerised as opposed to the current manual set-up.
Completion of the warehouse comes as Government is looking at ways to stimulate local production of pharmaceuticals products to reduce over-reliance on imports, which at times presents a huge risk to national health security.
Last year, Government launched the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Strategy in Zimbabwe (2021-2025), which seeks to double the production of essential drugs.
