Steve Dada
24 July 2008
Lagos — The Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) has raised an alarm over what it described as a killer anti-hypertensive drug called "propanolol" in circulation around the country and called on the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) to find its distributors immediately.
Chairman Lagos branch of PSN, Mr. Lanre Familusi, who disclosed this at the Pre-2008 pharmacy week press conference in Lagos yesterday said this becomes necessary so that more Nigerians would not be causalities of the deadly drug and also warned that what is already in circulation must be moped.
Familusi said the drug distribution channel in the country has been defective stressing that for almost three decades, the PSN has been in the forefront of agitation for sanitised drug distribution, but despite its efforts, the government he noted, continues to treat the issue with kid gloves.
He said in a more decorous drug distribution atmosphere, there would have been no problem as the killer batches would simply be recalled through registered distributors, wholesaler and other retailers in the drug distribution chain, but said this is impossible in Nigeria where distribution is in the hands of merchants of death.
He called on the government to restore sanity into the country's drug market as he appealed to NAFDAC to handle the matter with utmost urgency.
The PSN chairman also said the agency must ensure it dismantles the merchants who are in control of the structures of over 22 drug markets where they have become untouchable because of what he called extreme government benevolence.
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