The Pharmacists Council of Nigeria in Kwara State has embarked on a nationwide enforcement exercise to ensure that patent medicine stores meet the regulatory standards.
After a three-day exercise in the state, the regulatory body sealed 242 premises for various offences, ranging from dispensing poison, poor storage conditions and non registration with the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN) among others.
In most of the patent medicine stores visited, the enforcement team of PCN, accompanied by security operatives, discovered that the stores either sold dangerous drugs or were located in unhygienic environment.
While the medicine stores were too close to one another, it was also discovered that there were no qualified pharmacists operating the shops illegally and also engaging in illegal training of apprentices in the shops.
At the end of the nearly four hours enforcement exercise in Ilorin West and South Local Government Areas, most of the medicine shops were locked and sealed while those who had prior knowledge of the presence of the officials of the PCN locked their shops and fled.
The representative of the patent medicine shop owners, Taiwo Abass, admitted the nonchalant attitude of their members to the rules guiding the establishment of the shops. He said that several efforts had been made to educate them without success.
He believed that the sealing of the shops would surely enforce discipline and adherence to the rules.
