AWKA-WORRIED by the increasing rate of the circulation of fake and counterfeit pharmaceutical products in the country, Pharmacists in Nigerian have vowed to fight the perpetrators to a standstill. 

The pharmacists, at their 23rd Annual General Meeting, AGM, in Awka; Anambra State, said that as professionals trained to ensure that only genuine and wholesome drugs were found on drug shelves across the country, they would do everything within their powers to combat the menace to save Nigerians from patronizing quacks whose main motive is profit making in drug business. 

Anambra State chairman of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, PSN, Chisom Uchem said they would proffer solutions that would help to sanitize the pharmaceutical industry to make the people regain confidence in the sector. She said: "This forum affords pharmacists the ample opportunity to brainstorm and proffer solutions to public health hazards of patronizing un approved drug dealers. 

It also provides veritable platform for the PSN to partner with the Anambra State government on regulations, legislation and other restrictive mechanisms to forestall catastrophe resulting from the intake of fake and adulterated pharmaceutical products, as well as other areas of effective collaboration that will be in the overall interest of the citizenry 

"As a professional body, we must deliver on our mandate to ensure that there are no traces of fake drugs in Anambra State." 

Uchem stated categorically that the society was determined to unravel the mystery surrounding the continued thriving of illegal pharmaceutical business despite the efforts of the regulatory bodies and the PSN, adding that in Anambra State, Governor Willie Obiano has also charged the association to live up to the international standards in the "Asa professional body, we must deliver on our mandate to ensure that there are no traces of fake drugs discharge of its duties to rid the state of adulterated drugs". 

According to her pharmacists will use the occasion of this year's World Pharmacy Day to educate the public on ways of ensuring that patients obtained the most reliable pharmaceutical services. 

On Ebola, she promised that pharmacists will intensify its health education programmes to ensure that no disease of public health concern threatens the people anymore. 

A lecturer in the School of Pharmacy at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Mr. Sunny Nduka regretted that the open drug markets in Anambra State was a fertile ground for breeding elements who feed fat in faking the services of certified pharmacists in the state.  

He described as timely the Federal Government's drug distribution guideline, which he observed, would forestall the activities of fake and substandard drug dealers. 

BY VINCENT UJUMADU