👤 Abdul Tukur, DENISAURUS News

Hundreds of people gathered at Government College Kurmin Mashi, Kaduna to learn about the laws guiding the sales of drugs, DENISAURUS News can report.

The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC aims to reduce the amount of low quality drugs flooding the market.

The drug control agency, which has set a guideline for medicine and drugs vendors, attended a workshop hosted by the National Association of Patent and Proprietary Medicine, NAPPMED, where it stated that care must be taken when accepting drugs from distributors.

NAPPMED –  an association which oversees the operations of private patent medicine vendors, hosted the programme in order to sensitise its members in Kaduna, DENISAURUS News was informed by those present.

The programme, consisting of various educative workshop highlights problems that are derived from selling fake drugs.

Speaking to members of NAPPMED, a senior staff of NAFDAC explained that if the source of the drugs being sold can not be identified, it should not be accepted.

NAFDAC Coordinator Kaduna State, Nantim Mullah-Dadi also said that distributors must provide drugs vendors with receipts.

Mr Mullah-Dadi, who was at the NAPMED programme which began at 9am today, spoke extensively about the rules guiding sale of drugs, cosmetics and provisions in a medical store, stating that the disadvantages of selling counterfeit medical product were enormous.

He said that all chemist should take extra care of what they stock in their shops,  “even if it’s a coke that you don’t know where it is coming from, ensure you collect the receipt from the seller and ensure that the seller tells you where the source is coming from.”

Mr Mullah-Dadi, who is leading a team against the substandard drug products in Kaduna,  said: “if you demand for (accountability) at this level, all those distributors that are using you to make money for themselves, they will stop bringing you stupid drugs.”

Various studies have concluded that diseases like malaria is still killing many in Africa, due to the rising production of counterfeit drugs.

According to a recent WHO studies, substandard and counterfeit medicines may be responsible for up to 116,000 malaria deaths annually in sub-Saharan Africa alone.

NAPPMED believes that lives can be saved through the delivery of training and promotional messages to its members.

A member of the association told DENISAURUS News, the training was “highly beneficial.”

However, it was established that each member was required to pay 2 thousand Naira to attend the programme, yet they were only provided with a can of 50cl bottle of coke and a small take away, which hardly went round the almost one thousand people present.