From Ighomuaye Lucky, Benin
The Registrar, Pharmacists Council of Nigeria, (PCN), Pharm. Elijah Mohammed, yesterday, said a total of 256 Patent Medicines Vendors shops were sealed off for poor ethical standards in Edo State.
The Registrar, disclosed this in Benin through his Director of Enforcement, Pharm Stephen Esumobi.
He listed some of the areas visited where the sealings took place as Ekpoma, Irrua, Igueben, Ewu, Uromi, Ogwa.
Pharm. Elijah said in order to ensure that those who deals on drugs in large scale maintain the required standards and not to jeopardize the lives of the ordinary citizens of the country, the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN), mobilised its team of enforcement to go round and monitor how best they have upheld to the rules.
Elijah noted that to their surprise, some of the shop owners have not lived up to their billings leading to the shutting down of some of the shops in the state.
“Facilities that are not subjected to regulatory control cannot be guaranteed to offer acceptable services to the public and the integrity of medicines in such facilities cannot also be guaranteed to be of the same quality, efficacy and safety as produced by the manufacturers.
“The PCN enforcement team has been on the field throughout the week visiting various local government areas of the state.
“Some observations from the field in Edo state revealed that owners of many promises are engaged in the sale of medicines with disregard to laid down guidelines.
“Most of the patient medicines vendors in the state are either unregistered or registered but operating far beyond their approved scope.
“Many of them sell medicines beyond their approved drug list.
“Since, they don’t have the requisite knowledge to handle ethical medicines and substances of abuse the health of members of the public who patronise them is at risk.
“At the end of the exercise, a total of seven hundred and seventy one premises comprising four hundred and thirty one patent and proprietary medicines vendors shops (PPMVs) and three hundred and forty pharmacies where visited.
“Three hundred and forty premises comprising eighty four pharmacies and two hundred and fifty six patent medicines vendors shops were sealed.
“Twenty two compliance directives were issued to premises for various offences such as poor sanitary conditions, poor documentation and non display of premises and Pharmacists annual licences”, he explained.
He further advised citizens of the state to source their medicines from registered and currently licensed pharmacies and over-the-counter medicines from registered PPMV shops as drug sold in unregistered outlets cannot be guaranteed to be genuine due to the effect of poor handling and exposure to environmental factors that degrade them.