Dr. NYIRIMIGABO Eric

Head of Food Department

Dr. Eric Nyirimigabo is the Head of the Food Department (FD) at Rwanda FDA.

The Food Department oversees the inspection activities and safety monitoring of all food products manufactured locally and imported into the country and their inspections at all major ports of entry to stop the entry of substandard and falsified products into Rwanda.

In addition, FD also oversees the inspection and licensing of all food handling premises and monitoring of illegal operators of food outlets, and substandard and counterfeit regulated products through regular supervision and post-marketing surveillance. It ensures stakeholders, service providers, and the public receive the right information on the regulated products.

It also ensures the verification, monitoring, and certification of food promotion materials to ensure that misleading, biased, and inaccurate information about regulated products is not disseminated.

Before the current position, Dr. Nyirimigabo was the Head of the Food and Drugs Inspection and Safety Monitoring Department (FDISM). He has also served as the division manager for human medicine and devices assessment and registration at Rwanda FDA before being the Head of FDISM.

Dr. Nyirimigabo has a wealth of experience, having worked as a hospital pharmacist, quality inspector, laboratory testing officer in the Rwanda Standards Board, and a lecturer at the University of Rwanda in the School of Medicine and Pharmacy. He is a professional and registered pharmacist who specialized in drug analysis during his master’s studies. His PhD from the Chinese Academy of Sciences focused on the involvement of ERp44 in glucose and lipid metabolism, giving him a deep understanding of physiological and pharmacological processes.

He is also trained and experienced in Drug Discovery, Development and Commercialization, Medicine Quality Control, Quality Inspection, and Internal Audit. Dr. Nyirimigabo served on Rwanda Standards Boards’ various technical committees in addition to being a member of the Board of Directors of Rwanda Medical Supply Ltd.

His research interest focuses on public health protection through medicines regulation, natural medicines in the management of metabolic diseases, and medical supply chain management.