Self-Sufficiency Key to Secure Medicine
Nigerian leader, Dr. Paul Orhii, discussed the difficulties of keeping the drug supply free from counterfeit medicines, including porous borders, lack of resources, and the dependence upon foreign medication for their own health.
In an interview with Winifred Ogbedo in magazine Leadership, Dr. Orhii, the director-general of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), discussed the strides he’s been able to make to improve the safety of medication available to Nigerians, and the biggest obstacles to overcome, notably the development of domestically controlled medicine manufacturing.
Dr. Orhii is seeking to develop a domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing business because he says, “it’s a national security issue,” with 70% of essential medications imported from out of country.
“When armed robbers point a gun at your head, they usually give you an option; they say ‘your money
or your life.’ Sometimes, when you give them your money, they let you go, but drug counterfeiters
do not give you that option. They take the little money that sometimes poor, desperate people
have to enrich themselves. They deserve death,” says Dr. Orhii.
Image courtesy of The Gates Foundation via Flickr.
Nigerian leader, Dr. Paul Orhii, discussed the difficulties of keeping the drug supply free from counterfeit medicines, including porous borders, lack of resources, and the dependence upon foreign medication for their own health.
In an interview with Winifred Ogbedo in magazine Leadership, Dr. Orhii, the director-general of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), discussed the strides he’s been able to make to improve the safety of medication available to Nigerians, and the biggest obstacles to overcome, notably the development of domestically controlled medicine manufacturing.
Dr. Orhii is seeking to develop a domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing business because he says, “it’s a national security issue,” with 70% of essential medications imported from out of country.
With the help of the World Health Organization, Dr. Orhii trained manufacturers within Nigeria to meet WHO medicine standards. He is now awaiting seed money from the Nigerian federal government to promote and regulate domestic pharmaceutical companies.
One of his challenges is the Nigerian counterfeit medication distributors who import fake medication from overseas. Working cooperatively with China and India, Nigeria has brought cases of counterfeit importation to those governments who have passed serious laws against fake drug distribution. At the same time, Nigerian laws are being revised to increase penalties for counterfeiters to include strong prison sentences and monetary fines, however the law is not penalizing enough in Orhii’s eyes.
“In the new law, personally, I would have wanted the death penalty because as far as am concerned, drug counterfeiters are worse than armed robbers that we shoot here. Armed robbers are sentenced to death here but unfortunately, counterfeiters are not. When armed robbers point a gun at your head, they usually give you an option; they say ’your money or your life’. Sometimes, when you give them your money, they let you go, but drug counterfeiters do not give you that option. They take the little money that sometimes poor, desperate people have to enrich themselves. They deserve death.”
New laws are being considered currently that treat counterfeit medicine distributors like drug traffickers, including life imprisonment and confiscation of all assets. They’re all seeking to develop whistle blower laws that will reward those with knowledge of the counterfeiting conspiracies to come forward.
Says Orhii, mobile phone technology is the best method Nigerians have currently to stay safe.
Consumers can identify authentic medication by texting a unique identifying code hidden beneath a scratch card on packaging and send the code via text to a service which will verify it.
“What I require is that by September 1, all the often counterfeited medicines, especially the antibiotics, antimalarial drugs, diabetes and hypertension drugs will be on that program so that Nigerians can begin to scratch and verify their authenticity.”