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- Last month Rwanda's Food and Drugs Authority banned batches of Nestlé Cerelac cereal.
- The ban has been lifted after laboratory tests.
- The batches of cereal didn't have proper labels on them.
Rwanda's Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) has lifted a month-long ban on batches of Nestlé Cerelac cereal that originated in France and was sold in the country without proper labels.
On 25 February, the authorities issued a notice that all boxes that didn't bear the address of the manufacturer, and ingredients, should be removed from shelves pending an investigations.
The suspicion was that they were counterfeit and could pose a danger to consumers.
Laboratory tests, however, proved that the products met the country's quality standards. The FDA then advised retailers to continue selling them.
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"Rwanda FDA has sampled the mentioned batches for laboratory quality testing. Laboratory test results revealed that those products are complying with quality standards," said FDA director general Dr Emile Bienvenu.
"In addition the authority has made traceability investigations and found out that there products are from a genuine manufacturer in Spain."
However, the FDA warned importers and retailers against selling products that didn't meet the set label requirements: the "name of the food, list of ingredients, net content and drained weight, name and physical address, country of origin, lot or batch identification number, manufacture and expiry date, instructions for use, storage instructions and quantitative labelling of ingredients".
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Failure to do so would result in the products being seized and destroyed.
Rwanda's FDA is a government institution that's mandated to protect public health through regulation of human and veterinary medicines, vaccines and other biological products, processed foods, poisons, medicated cosmetics, medical devices, household chemical substances, tobacco and tobacco products.
It recalled Ketoconazole oral tablets in December last year because they were found to have "higher risks of liver injury than its benefits when treating fungal infections".
The News24 Africa Desk is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation. The stories produced through the Africa Desk and the opinions and statements that may be contained herein do not reflect those of the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
