Pharmacists: Avoid Malpractices That Can Bring In Counterfeits
As Nigeria fights for an efficient pharmaceutical value chain, the Nigerian lady pharmacists have been charged with ensuring zero-tolerance for any sort of malpractices which could introduce counterfeits into the pharmaceutical system as functional health systems require an efficient value chain that ensures a consistent flow of easily affordable and high-quality medicines.
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With the theme of the 2022 Biennial National Conference of the Association of Lady Pharmacists, ALPs, in Lagos, being: “Pharmaceutical Value Chain for Optimal Utilisation: Where are we?”, Mrs. Clare Omatseye, the Managing Director of JNC International Ltd and the Chairman of Vaccipharm Limited, mentioned that approximately 100,000 people in Africa die annually from fake medication, hence, the need for ALPs to jointly advocate with the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, PSN, and ensure that healthcare professionals come together and have a clear and common goal of meeting patients’ requirements for better and more accessible services, thereby optimising the pharmaceutical value chain.
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She explained that when adopting a supply chain strategy, the players in the chain need to be more customer-centric by putting the needs of patients first.
“We must not let the recent pandemic magnifying lens go to waste, It presented us with a unique opportunity to accelerate and grow pharma sector and become a major contributor to Nigeria’s GDP over the next decade coupled with the export opportunity of AfCFTA. We need to attract the investment capital.
“Women are great advocates and we must advocate Government on the critical need to create an enabling environment to further incentivize investors to place their funds in the Pharma Value Chain, and stop being overly dependent on foreign aid, or an FDI takes over.” She further stressed that partnership with regulators was critical to ensure pharmacists transit from a manual, unfriendly bureaucracy to online approvals.
