Nigeria depends on Ghana, India for 70 % pharmaceutical products – PSN

 

The national president of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN), Alhaji Ahmed Yakassai, have expressed concerns that the country’s over dependence on importation of pharmaceutical products into the country could be injurious to Nigerians’ health.
He said presently Nigeria is importing 70 per cent of her pharmaceutical products, from India, China, and Ghana.
Disclosing this at a town hall meeting with members of the association in Ilorin, Kwara state, the PSN national president lamented that some African countries and other nations are bombarding Nigeria with imported drugs, adding that, “anyone can put anything together anywhere and end up killing innocent people.”
He also lamented that two local pharmaceutical companies, Evans and Swifer, had either been sold or taken over by banks, adding that despite available human resources in the country, the industry is bedevilled with challenges in infrastructure, high tax, lack of control mechanism, chaotic drug distribution, substandard/drug abuse, lack of government support, inadequate funding, quackery among others.
Yakassai further revealed that the association was owed a total sum of N4 billion between the period of administrations of former president Olusegun Obasanjo and president Muhammadu Buhari, for drugs purchased, adding that the President Buhari’s administration recently paid N2 billion out of the debt.
According to him, various governments preferred to buy on credits from Nigeria’s drug manufacturers and pay cash to manufacturers in India and other countries.
Yakassai, who called for a state of emergency on drug abuse, described drug distribution in the country as chaotic, as many people see pharmaceutical industry as an easy way to make money.
He also revealed that “there are growing unconventional ways of drug abuse among Nigerians of all sexes and ages in many parts of the country.
“I don’t know how they got to know those unconventional ways of drug abuse. Tramadol, cough syrup to methylated spirit and soft drinks.
“Patent medicine dealers are no pharmacists, even though there are bad elements in every profession and in every society. We can’t call for ban of the abused drugs. We can only control it, while importers of illicit and substandard drugs should attract life sentence because they cause death of a lot of people.”
He also said that the federal government was yet to fulfil its promise to close markets where illicit and substandard drugs are sold in the country, and replace them with coordinated wholesale markets where the police, NAFDAC, and other control agencies would be located to do random checks on the operators.
He expressed the hope that the pharmaceutical industry would be encouraged when Dangote petrochemical industry starts operations, saying that active pharmaceutical ingredients would be derived to boost local pharmaceutical production and exportation.

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