Relocate to wholesale centres, NAFDAC, PCN tell drug marketers

The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) and the Pharmacy Council of Nigeria (PCN) have urged drug marketers in Kano to relocate their businesses to the Coordinated Wholesale Centre (CWC) in Dangwauro to curb substandard and falsified medicines (SFs).

The agencies made this call at a press briefing on Tuesday in Lagos.

NAFDAC Director-General Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye and PCN Registrar, Ibrahim Ahmed, said open drug markets, such as those in Sabon Gari, Malam Kato, and Mai Karami Plaza in Kano, contribute to the circulation of SFs, leading to treatment failures and preventable deaths.

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They called on the affected drug dealers to comply with the Federal High Court’s February 2024 ruling mandating their relocation to the Kano CWC.

“This fight started decades ago when the Presidential Committee on Pharmaceutical Sector Reform (PCPSR), constituted in 2003, developed strategies towards the sanitization of the drug distribution system in Nigeria. The Coordinated Wholesale Centres (CWC), where the open marketers can be relocated for proper monitoring, is a product of the PCPSR. The Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Ali Pate, is one of the architects of CWC and is in full support of the Centres.

“The PCPSR recommended the development of National Drug Distribution Guidelines (NDDG) as a key strategy to coordinate the drug distribution sub-sector, and all operators in the open drug markets in Kano, Lagos, Onitsha, and Aba were given December 2018 as a deadline by the then Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, to relocate to CWC,” Adeyeye stated.

She added that enforcement actions taken earlier this year resulted in the sealing of 1,370 illegal drug outlets in Kano’s open markets.

Ahmed said, “Over the years, the medicine dealers in Kano have resisted all attempts by concerned regulatory authorities to relocate their pharmaceutical businesses from the open drug markets in Mai Karami Plaza, Niger Street, Malam Kato, and Sabon Gari areas of Kano to the Coordinated Wholesale Centres in the Dangwauro area of the state. The dealers even filed a suit in court seeking to reject relocation to the Coordinated Wholesale Centre.

“The judgement that the open drug marketers should move to the Kano CWC is monumental because the control of drug distribution will be better regulated and the prevalence of substandard medicines will be mitigated significantly.”

The agencies urged medicine dealers to see this relocation as a step towards protecting public health, safeguarding lives, and boosting the nation’s economy through a healthier workforce.