CANCER, HIV patients and others can now heave a sigh of relief. The Federal Government said it has introduced a pain-relieving drug for the killer-diseases. The pill is called morphine.
The drug, which had been in use in very low quantity in health facilities in the country will now be supplied by the Federal Government and the American Cancer Society (ACS) in the next one year.
The programme is being implemented under the auspices of Pain-Free Hospital Initiative.
Managing Director of Global Cancer Treatment Dr. Megan O’Brien who spoke on behalf of ACS, during the unveiling of morphine yesterday evening in Abuja, said the drug will reduce the scarcity of pain relievers.
Her words: “In the past, opioid pain relievers were not widely used in Nigeria, and as a result, hundreds of thousands of Nigerians have suffered unnecessarily. Their unrelieved pain affected not only themselves. Their suffering traumatised their families, their communities, and the health workers who took care of them.”
According to her, that experience in more developed countries had shown that pain relievers, like morphine, could be used in conjunction with simple treatment algorithms developed by the World Health Organisation to effectively treat 80-90 per cent of people with moderate or severe pain.
“These medicines are plentiful, inexpensive, safe, and easy to use. They are considered essential medicines by WHO and are on the essential medicines list here in Nigeria”, O’Brien stressed.
The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health, Mr. Linus Awute, said the introduction of morphine was aimed at avoiding deaths associated with acute pain from certain ailments and would equip health workers to assess pain and provide high-quality first-line treatment.
Four hospitals: University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital, Ilorin; University College Hospital, Ibadan; University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu; and National Hospital, Abuja, were selected and presented with a large box filled with the drug.
Awute said the hospitals were chosen “based on utilization of Oral Morphine Solution in pain treatment”.
He said: “Pain relief is a core component of cancer and HIV treatment. It is estimated that approximately 80 per cent of people with advanced cancer and 50 per cent of HIV require narcotic medicines to treat moderate or severe pain.
“In 2012, about 177,000 people were estimated to have died in moderate or severe pain from HIV or cancer. In the same year, the utilization of narcotic medicines such as morphine was enough to treat only 266 people, representing mere 0.2 per cent coverage of pain treatment need.”