The federal government has said that all open drug markets in
Nigeria will be permanently shut by December 31, 2018, even as it said
it will be introducing drug Coordinated Wholesale Centers nationwide to
check the menace of falsified medical products in the country.
The Minister of Health, Professor Isaac Adewole, disclosed this in
Lagos during a stakeholders’ workshop organized by the National Agency
for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) in collaboration
with the World Health Organisation (WHO) on ‘The prevention, Detection
and Response of Substandard and Falsified medical Products.’
He said the new measures were designed to allow drugs to be sourced
directly from importers or manufacturers down to the end users instead
of buying drugs from the open drug markets.
According to him, the FMOH had developed the National Drug
Distribution Guidelines, (NDDG) in 2012 to address the unsatisfactory
chaotic drug distribution system of the country.
“Coordinated Wholesale Centres to accommodate open market
medicines sellers have been approved and are being developed in Lagos,
Onitsha, Aba and Kano and will commence operation by January 1, 2019.
“Medicine is an important component of healthcare delivery
service and without the infusion of medicines; the health care service
delivery system of a nation is sterile.
“A good-quality medicine supply system is essential for
healthcare delivery. There is a special need to prevent therapeutic drug
falsification in order to safeguard against health and maintain trust
in healthcare system. The overall scale of trading in medicine and the
resultant harm done to global health has not been adequately accessed,” he said.
On his part, the Acting Director General, NAFDAC, Mr. Ademola
Mogbojuri, noted that the public health implications of substandard and
falsified medical products include treatment failure, high treatment
cost, development of resistance, loss of confidence in the healthcare
providers and healthcare system and may ultimately, result in fatality
and death.
Mogbojuri who raised the alarm that the problem has become a
serious, threat to global public health said the fight against this
nefarious act requires a sustained action by both governmental and non
governmental bodies.
Stating that single and isolated interventions cannot address the
issue of substandard falsified medical products, he called for
coordinated actions with international organisations to reduce to the
barest minimum the incidence of the ugly menace.
The Acting Director General said WHO established member states
mechanism on substandard, spurious, falsely labelled, falsified and
counterfeit medical products following its resolution 65:19 in May 2012
to promote public health, and access to affordable, safe, efficacious
and quality medical product, across the globe.
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