By Doris Obinna & Henry Uche
Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN), Lagos State, has raised alarm over the imminent floodgate of fake and counterfeit pharmaceutical products in Nigeria.
It’s Chairman, Babayemi Oyekunle, made this known during its 2024 annual general meeting (AGM) held in Lagos.
The Society, which decried high cost of drugs in the country and non- implementation of Consolidated Health Salary Structure (CONHESS) adjustment and creation of vacancies for Consultant Pharmacists in Federal Health Institutions, maintained that weak regulation occasioned by insufficient funding is a major reason for the surge.
“Government needs to grant more tax holidays as well as remove some high tariffs introduced in the last few years in the pharma sector as these costs are passed to consumers.
“High cost of registration of drug products & Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) with National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), as well as inspection fees needs to be redressed. The industry is having issues with payment as the NAFDAC Automated Products Administration and Monitoring System (NAPAMS) generated tariff is more than the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) rate when calculated with the dollar fees on NAFDAC tariff.”
PSN stressed that NAFDAC has turned itself into a revenue-generating agency at the detriment of consumers of health in Nigeria, as registration of products is now a very difficult task while submission of dossiers has not been possible in the past ten months.
“It is noteworthy to put on record that six and a half years of Adeyeye’s leadership at NAFDAC has led to an astronomical increase in the prices of drugs by an estimated 400 per cent from November 2017 to March 2024 because of a series of untested policies and extremely high tariff introduced by the DG.
“A scarcity of genuine products is imminent, and that opens Nigeria up to a floodgate of fake and counterfeit products in months ahead. We sound it loud and clear that unless President Tinubu intervenes now, the prices of drugs will continue to skyrocket in Nigeria.”
The pharmacists advised that, the freehold, which permits private hospitals, in particular, to ensure the strangulation of patients through reckless pricing of drugs, must be regulated by the regulators.
They noted that the federal ministry of health must help Nigerians by compelling generic prescribing and dispensing of drugs that are safe, efficacious, accessible and affordable, saying ‘a well-run prescription policy may suffice in this regard.’
They urged the Federal Government to constitute a presidential ad-hoc committee on drug distribution, whose chairman must be a registered pharmacist and must double as Adviser on Pharmaceuticals to the President.
“The responsibility of this committee are but not limited to: Commencement of oversight responsibility to achieve full implementation of the NDDG 2015, which seeks to restore decorum to the drug distribution channel; promote synergy in the responsibilities of PCN, NAFDAC and NDLEA when narcotics are involved. This is the long-term solution to the menace and anarchy which dots drug distribution endeavours in Nigeria.”
On the implementation of CONHESS, they lamented over FG’s renege to their agreement which has led to a disenchantment and frustration of health workers. They called on the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (OHCSF) to conclude work which started about six months ago on the creation of vacancies in all the 56 Federal Health Institutions (FHIs).
“The federal government should not allow things boil over to a stage where the suspended strike of health workers will be resumed. Our appeal is grounded on the fact that the fellowship by examination, which produced its first set of graduates since 1997, has encouraged the production of a wasted generation of consultant pharmacists who are now retired from the civil service.
“We appeal to OHCSF to catalyse efforts to conclude this exercise as we are not unmindful of the delay tactics deliberately created by the bureaucracy in some of the Federal Health Institutions which are not co-operating to allow this laudable innovation see the light of day,” they asserted.