Isingiro health official remanded over stealing govt drugs, including 500,000 ARVs
NDA spokesperson Abiaz Rwamwiri said Muzahura was arrested after tracking him as he tried to sell the drugs.
John Baptist Muzahura appearing before Isingiro Magistrates court. (Photos by Abdulkarim Ssengendo)
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Isingiro district health official John Baptist Muzahura has been charged with two counts of theft of government drugs contrary to section 237 (1) and 244 of the Penal Code Act and possession of government stores contrary to section 296 of the Penal Code Act.
However, Muzahura, who was arraigned before Isingiro chief magistrate Patrick Bamuhiga on December 17, 2025, denied the charges, but Bamuhiga denied him bail and remanded him until December 30, 2025, when the case will come up for hearing and hearing of his bail application.
The Ibanda Chief Magistrate's Court heard that on November 15, 2025, at Nyamuyanja Health Centre IV in Isingiro district, Muzahura, a resident of Nyamitanga in Mbarara city, stole boxes of assorted medicines. He was found with 18 boxes of assorted medicines at his home in Nyamitanga cell in Mbarara city.
The National Drug Authority (NDA), through a special operation on December 15, 2025, arrested Muzahura, 47, a senior clinical officer of Nyamuyanja Health Centre IV in Isingiro North county, who had been on the run after being illegally found with over 500,000 doses of antiretrovirals (ARVs) at his home in Nyamitanga, Mbarara city.
Abiaz Rwamwiri, the NDA Communications Manager addressing journalists at Isingiro Magistrate Court on Wednesday.
They also recovered at his home 2,680 doses of antimalarials, 11,500 malaria testing kits and other assorted medicines, including amoxicillin sodium injection, gentamicin injection, calcium lactate tablets, povidone iodine, amoxicillin, all bearing marks applied on the stores under the control of the health ministry.
It is alleged that Muzahura stole the drugs together with his accomplice, Bridget Balhubasa, a health information assistant and store-in-charge at the same facility (Nyamuyanja HVI).
"After recovery of these drugs, Muzahura and Balhubasa ran away, but our team was able to verify from hospital records and managed to link the recovered ARVs, antimalarials and malaria testing kits to the Health Centre IV store documents," an NDA official told New Vision Online.
On December 2, 2025, NDA, working with other security agencies, arrested Balhubasa from Kasese and arraigned her before the Isingiro Chief Magistrate's Court, where she pleaded guilty to the charges of theft of government drugs and was on December 11 sentenced to three years in prison.
Isingiro district health officer Dr Edson Tumusherure told New Vision Online at court that this was the first time the district has had such a case.
More arrests
NDA spokesperson Abiaz Rwamwiri said Muzahura was arrested after tracking him as he tried to sell the drugs. NDA’s special operations, according to Rwamwiri, have for the last six years led to the recovery of stolen government medicine worth over shillings 15 billion and the arrest of over 62 suspects, including 43 health officials, a soldier and a Police officer.