Pharmacists’ council seals 397 medicine shops in Abia

For various offences inimical to laid down rules, the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN), on Friday, sealed a total of three hundred and ninety seven (397) medicine stores in Abia State.

Speaking with newsmen in Umuahia on PCN activities in the state, the Deputy Director (enforcement) of PCN, Stephen Esumobi, said the sealed stores are made up thirty seven (37) pharmacies, three hundred and sixty patent medicine stores while twenty seven (27) other premises were issued with compliance directives for offences such as poor documentation, failure to display lines among others.

Esumobi, who said they were in the state to ensure that the rules governing the pharmacists operations are complied with by their members, disclosed that their mandate was to ensure rational distribution and dispensing of medicines that are safe, effective and of good quality to the general public, stressing that certain conditions of PCN must be met before a pharmaceutical facility operates.

While explaining that the first thing to apply for is the location approval, as not every location is suitable for such business, he said that after that, the place must be provided with the required structure such as storage system to protect the drugs, stating “When the location is approved, necessary structures will be put in place for inspection to ensure that the right storage environment is in place to preserve the pharmacological and pharmacokinetic integrity of the medicines”.

Esumobi further disclosed that during their inspection in Abia State, they “found out that many pharmacists operate without fulfilling minimum requirements for registration while others failed to renew their licenses to operate such premises.

“Some of these pharmacists store products in environments where the quality, safety and efficacy of pharmaceutical products cannot be guaranteed which in turn expose the public to serious danger.

“Others on the other hand do not have the pre-requisite knowledge to handle the highly ethical drugs in their facilities, the PCN is therefore determined to reverse the ugly trend and improve on the level of pharmaceutical services delivery to Abia people,” he added.

He maintained that what they have seen in Abia State is not different from what obtains in other states, “but the environmental storage system is so bad especially in Aba that if not checked could cause problems for the public”. He explained that most of the drugs they saw stored in such bad environments ended up making the drugs to be degraded even when their expiration date has not reached.

Esumobi therefore used the forum to advise members of the public to always purchase their medicines from licenced pharmacies and simple household remedies from licenced patent and propriety medicine vendors.