NAN-H-52
Workshop
By Cynthia Nwadinobi and Babatunde Ogunrinde
Lagos, Dec. 6, 2016 (NAN) Mrs Amaka Okafor, Director, Pharmacist Council of Nigeria (PCN), Lagos Zonal Office, on Tuesday urged Nigerians to have confidence in locally produced drugs, saying they were as potent as the imported ones.
Okafor spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sidelines of a two-day capacity building workshop in Lagos, tagged “Coordinating Wholesale Centres (CWC)’’ for operators in the pharmaceutical industry.
CWCs are zonal centres where practitioners in pharmaceuticals industry, including those in open drugs market are brought under one regulatory platform to ensure quality of drugs on sale.
She urged the public to continue to trust and patronise homemade drugs.
The pharmacist noted that locally produced drugs were manufactured in line with the world standard of Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP), adding that they were well stored in appropriate temperatures.
“There is no reason to doubt the potency of homemade drugs as compared with foreign produced ones because they all go through the same standard production processes.
“The drugs manufactured are well monitored to see that they are in line with the world acceptable standard which is described as the Good Manufacturing Practices.
“We do not also lack any technicalities in producing drugs as the level of technical knowhow has well developed and can considerably measure up with our foreign counterparts.
“However, the problem of erratic power supply has most times tampered with capacity of producing drugs and caused about 24 hours use of electric generating sets thereby affecting the price of drugs,’’ she said.
Okafor urged the government to create social amenities such as infrastructure, electricity and standard storing capacity that would lessen the burden of drug production.
She also urged the government to encourage local production of drugs and the purchase of more locally produced goods as a way of encouraging local producers. (NAN)
NCO/BAO/PDE
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(Edited by Edwin Nwachukwu/Peter Ejiofor)