Tag: Maldives Food and Drug Authority

MFDA warns of contaminated IVs imported from India

The Maldives Food and Drug Authority (MFDA) has issued a statement warning all pharmacies and healthcare centres to stop usage and trade of certain Intravenous (IV) bags imported from India because of potential contamination.

MFDA issued an pharmaceutical alert informing that MFDA officials have discovered some black matter inside the IV bags manufactured by an Indian company named ‘Baxter ‘. The MFDA said that the black matter was discovered inside two batches of IV bags imported from the company.

The batch numbers of the two batches that foreign matters discovered were also given by the MFDA. The batch numbers were 10101192 and 10101199 of ‘Ringer lactate’ IV bags.

Maldives Food and Drug Authority said that IV bags have to be packed under certain safety conditions and the discovery of such foreign matters inside the IV bags imported from Baxter laboratories makes the quality of the product questionable.

The MFDA has not identified the matter discovered inside the IV bags.

According to MFDA, healthcare centres and pharmacies have now started removing the IV bags from sale and also warned that the use of contaminated intravenous bags could cause serious health problems.

Director General of Maldives Food and Drug Authority, Shareef Adam today told Minivan News that the authority had now informed all of the health centres, hospitals and pharmacies to remove the IV bags and not to use it.

Shareefa said that the MFDA had not received any information that anyone had used them.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

MFDA shuts down Café Alfresco and Blue Cappuccino

The Maldives Food and Drug Authority (MFDA) has shut down another famous eatery in Male’, Café Alfresco in the State Trading Organisation (STO) building, after the authority found the café’s hygiene conditions did not meet the MFDA’s regulation.

The Blue Cappuccino restaurant in Maaveyo Magu was also closed by the MFDA in its ongoing food inspections program.

‘’Alfresco has unfortunately been closed for the time being after an inspection by the Maldives Food and Drug Authority (MFDA),’’ Alfresco said in a statement on its website. ‘’We will hopefully be reopening shortly after we set the café’s facilities to fully comply with the MFDA’s standards.’’

‘’We apologise deeply to all our customers and assure complete adherence to MFDA regulations and standards in the future. We take full responsibility for this unfortunate incident and are more than willing to extend our support and cooperation to MFDA.’’

No details of the issues with the restaurants were provided by the MFDA as it has decided not to reveal such details following complaints from the owners of the closed food outlets.

‘’We decided not to reveal the details following complaints we received from the places,’’ said Jameela Mohamed, Media Coordinator of MFDA. ‘’We will issue a press release regarding the matter later today.’’

Café Alfresco was not the first famous food outlet to be suddenly closed by the MFDA. Famous restaurants such as West Park and Raaveriya was also closed by the MFDA during the inspections program.

Well known teashops such as Market Hotel, Faseyha Point and Malaafai 2 were also closed by the MFDA after it found the hygiene conditions did not meet MFDA regulations.

Live goats, houseflies, lizards and cats were discovered in the kitchens and stores of some of the closed restaurants and cafés.

The MFDA said so far 113 venues were checked and 12 places closed due to poor hygiene.

Meanwhile, some of the closed restaurants and teashops have been reopened after correcting the issues faced by the MFDA.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)