Pragmatic approach to drug management

By Kehinde Adeleye

Sir: It is sometimes frightening to hear that drugs are potential poisons. The wonder is why a substance expected to cure an aliment is referred to as poison. Today, it is no longer news that many have been sent to their early graves, while some carry various health challenging ailments due to misuse of drugs.

Abuse of prescription and irrational use of drugs are, no doubt, the order of the day, just as so many people, due to the fear of fake and counterfeit drugs no longer have confidence in the drugs they take. Many have been known to die from complications arising from fake drug ingestion just as people find it difficult to actually differentiate between fake and genuine drugs.

This situation requires a drastic action from the government. There is need for collaborative efforts between the health authorities and community pharmacists, while relevant laws should be put in place to regulate the use of drugs. Government needs to put in place measures to sensitize the general public through health talk, walk against wrong use of drugs and jingles in this direction.

In Ondo State, a lot of critical steps have been taken to check and control the use of drugs. One of such steps was the setting up of a task force on fake and counterfeit drugs in the state. The committee which is headed by the Director of Pharmaceutical Services in the Ministry of Health, Pharmacist Olugbenga Lasekan, has the representative of National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), National Association of Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN), Nigeria Police (NPF), Nigeria Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) and others as members.

The body has since closed down over 200 medicine stores not approved by government while, they have increased the level of advocacy to traditional rulers, religious leaders, market women on the dangers involved in allowing people that don’t have business in drug to handle them.

The Nigeria State Health Investment Project (NSHIP), which is a World Bank assisted project in the state with the objective of strengthening the health system across the state has joined hand with it in the combat against fake and counterfeit drugs by procuring a TRU-SCAN machine that tests whether drugs are genuine or fake. The mobile machine scans and screens drugs in a jiffy.

With this modern detective machine, one hopes that fake drugs will soon become a thing of the past.

• Kehinde Adeleye, NSHIP, Akure.