Group calls for efforts towards local manufacturing of vaccine 

Partnership for Advocacy in Child and Family Health (PACFAH), has called on the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN) to support indigenous pharmaceutical companies to obtain Good Manufacturing certification to commence local production of vaccines.

This is against the backdrop of plans by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisations (GAVI) to reduce financial support on Vaccine by 20 percent yearly till 2021, when Nigeria would be fully responsible for its vaccine procurement and logistics for freight.

Remi Adeseun, the programme director, Strategy PACFAH, stated this during an advocacy visit to the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria yesterday, in Abuja. He said transition from GAVI support means that Nigeria has exceeded the eligibility gross national income per capita threshold of $1,580.

He, however, urged PCN to push for more funding for routine immunisation to protect children from vaccine-preventable diseases.

Disclosing that 111 women and girls die daily from pregnancy and childbirth related causes; Adeseun attributed the high maternal mortality rate to high-unintended pregnancies and low use of contraceptives.

He stated that increased uptake of modern family planning services would contribute to the reduction of 1.6million unintended pregnancies, as well as death of 400,000 infants deaths, as a result of pneumonia and diarrhea.

He called on PCN to support more pharmaceutical companies to produce and distribute family planning commodities in the country, as well as, support the implementation of family planning blueprint in Nigeria.

In his remark, Pharmacist Elijah said there is need to re-orientate drug vendors to know that they are not only in business to make money, but to also ensure that the sick get well.

He said: “We need to re-orientate the mind set of the patent medicine stores, so that they can understand the need to deliver quality healthcare to Nigerians. Good policies would not reduce fake drugs in the country, but change of mindset of patent drug distributors would do”.