The federal government, through a member of the Presidential Cabinet and Minister of State for Health, Hon. Joseph Ekumankama, has revealed its plans of implementing the Pharmacists Consultant cadre as a way of promoting Pharmacy practice and quality healthcare delivery in Nigeria.
The Honourable Minister made this laudable remark on Tuesday, November 29, 2022, at the ongoing scientific workshop organized by the West African Postgraduate College of Pharmacy (WAPCP), in conjunction with the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development (NIPRD).
Recall that in recent times, the call for implementation of the Pharmacy consultancy has intensified in the country, as a way of making Nigeria match developed countries of the world, whose heath sector has seen enviable and commendable growth.
Hon. Ekumankama, who was the special guest of honour at the event, noted that the college has been effective in training and retraining of highly recognized pharmacists in the country, adding that the Federal Ministry of Health will do all it can to continue to promote quality pharmaceutical services in the country.
“The Federal Ministry of Health acknowledges the valuable contribution of the college in churning out highly specialized Pharmacists whom are well equipped and knowledgeable to render pharmaceutical care services for improved health and wellbeing of citizens. The sustainable implementation of the Pharmacists Consultant cadre across departments, agencies and federal health institutions, remains a top priority that is being closely monitored for due execution in compliance with extant government circulars and memos.
“The availability of appropriate medicines is key for a functional health system as clearly stated by the National Drug Policy (NDP), 2021 that; “no matter how vibrant a health policy, without availability of good quality and affordable medicines, that policy will be sterile”. This thus demonstrate the importance of the Pharmaceutical Sector. The overall goal of this Policy is “to make available at all times to the Nigerian populace adequate supplies of drugs that are effective, affordable, safe and of good quality; to ensure the rational use of such drugs; and to stimulate increased local production of essential drugs,” he said.
Noting the expectation from the programme, he said that the event will foster crossbreeding of ideas between the two key players in the sector, to enable them to make use of all their available resources in solving the problem of excessive dependence on imported Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs).
According to him, “The mutually beneficial partnership between NIPRD and WAPCP would facilitate the cross fertilization of ideas and innovations that would gradually change the narrative in assuring Medicines’ self-sufficiency in local production of primary raw materials and secondary finished pharmaceutical products. The situation where there is no single pharmaceutical company that produces any APIs or pharmaceutical excipients locally is no longer tolerable. All of the APIs used by the industries in Nigeria are imported from India, China, the USA and Germany, and large amounts of the country's scarce foreign exchange earnings are spent on their importation.
“I urge you all to commit and actively participate in the discourse in order to arrive at resolutions on way forward that might metamorphose into a regional Strategic Plan for the local manufacturing of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients. And also lead to transforming NIPRD into the hub for pharmaceutical innovation within West Africa and indeed the entire African continent.”
Meanwhile, these observations dominated the discourse at the just concluded 95th Annual National Conference of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN), where the Director-General, NIPRD, Dr Obi Peter Adigwe, as the keynote speaker, called for immediate implementation of a Presidential Task Force on Pharma and Allied Sector Development (PTFPASD), stressing the need to make the President PSN, Prof. Cyril Usifoh, its head, in a bid to promote local production of the APIs.
The workshop, with the theme “Local Manufacturing of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) in the West African Region”, started on Monday, November 28, and is expected to end on Thursday, December 1, 2022.
Pharm. Mopa Esuga, Chief of Party at US Pharmacopeia, Nigeria, rendered the keynote speech; in his address on the theme of the workshop, he noted that Africa is reported to contribute to about 23% of the global disease burden and contributes 1% of the global spending on health.
The Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Emzor Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, Chief Pharm. (Dr) Stella Okoli, was the Chairperson of the opening ceremony.