…200 children confirmed with TB in Jigawa
No fewer than 200 children have been confirmed to have tuberculosis disease in Sara town, Gwaram Local Government Area of Jigawa State.
The Head of Department (HOD) of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) in the state, Alhaji Muhammad Maisamari, who confirmed this yesterday through Malam Nasiru Yusif, the Information Officer of the affected local government council said that the council had already quarantined the affected children.
He also said that the council had provided drugs and other logistics for the treatment of victims.
The HOD said the department was able to bring the situation under control and was taking necessary measures to avoid spread of the disease to other communities.
He appealed to residents of the council to report the outbreak of any disease to the appropriate authorities for quick response.
Meanwhile, Elijah Mohammed, Registrar Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN), has restated the Federal Government’s commitment to ending open drug hawking by August 1, 2017.
Mohammed said in Abuja that the move would assist in curtailing the menace of open drug sale.
He attributed major challenges in the health system to open drug hawking.
The registrar who noted that a lot of the hawkers sold fake and adulterated drugs, stated that coordinated wholesale centres are currently being built in four states of the federation where open sale of drugs is predominant.
He said the drug dealers would be relocated to the centres to enable them carry out their activities in a coordinated manner.
According to him, the centres would go a long way to curtailing drug hawking, among others, as there would be strict regulation of drug distribution and sales at the centres.
NAN reports that open drugs marketers or dealers are unlicensed medicines sellers in and around the streets, major markets like Idumota in Lagos, Onitsha, over head bridges, Sabongari in Kano and Nyanya-FCT, motor parks among others.
Noting the locations of the centres as Kano, Lagos, Onitsha, Aba Mohammed however said construction of those facilities are currently on-going.
He, however, said that all dealers would be relocated to those centres to carry out their activities and would be properly regulated.
The registrar said anyone caught operating outside those centres after the specified date would be arrested and prosecuted by security agency.
“The issue of open drug market will come to an end by Aug 1st next year and we are working toward that and have put in place necessary measures to take care of that which is the coordinated wholesale centres.
“The coordinated wholesale centre in Onitsha which is situated in Oba will take care of the Onitsha overhead bridge. And we have inspected the location and been granted approval and development has started.
“We have just four centres to address the major open drug market and we have only one centres in each of the states where those operations are predominant because it was only one open drug market that have been identified,’’ Mohammed. (NAN)