The Pharmacist Council of Nigeria (PCN) has clamped down on quack medicine dealers in Rivers State sealing off 178 illegal stores and arresting 16 suspects.
The PCN said on Friday that it took the action during an operation in conjunction with the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) in line with its mandate of regulating and controlling the education, training, and practice of pharmacy.
Speaking in Port Harcourt, the Director Enforcement, PCN, Stephen Esumobi, said the joint team visited 251 premises in Port Harcourt City and Obio-Akpor local government areas during the exercise.
He said the affected premises were indicted for offences like operating without valid registrations with the PCN.
Esumobi said despite the sensitisation platform created by PCN for stakeholders in the pharmaceutical sector, many medicine dealers in Rivers were still adamantly operating at variance the law.
Esumobi said besides not having valid proofs of registrations, many dealers were operating without appropriate storage facilities exposing medicines to adverse environmental factors.
He lamented that such exposure degraded drugs or transformed them into other biologically active substances, whose actions were at variance with the manufacturers’ indications making them unsuitable for human consumption.
He said: “These illegal outlets do not have pharmacists to supervise the dispensing of medicines to the public. This has contributed to the irrational dispensing of medicines resulting in treatment failures and untoward effects on patients and other unsuspecting members of the public, who patronise activities of these illegal outlets tend to them.
“Similarly, they encourage the abuse and misuse of controlled medicines with the attendant negative social and security implications.
“To address this challenge, the PCN stepped up enforcement activities across the state. As a result of this intervention, some premises upgraded their facilities to meet conditions for storage of medicines while others have employed pharmacists to supervise pharmaceutical activities.
“Some of the owners of the premises in the state who refused to comply with guidelines broke the PCN seals and continued with their illegal activities. This prompted this follow-up enforcement visit which was jointly carried out with the officers of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC).
“16 illegal medicine dealers have been arrested so far for breaking PCN seals and efforts are ongoing to apprehend and prosecute other suspects who are currently at large.”