The Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria yesterday, vowed to boost local capacity for manufacturing of essential medicines including vaccines.
The president, PSN, Prof. Cyril Odianose Usifoh, who disclosed this at a press conference on Wednesday in Lagos, said Nigeria, as a country, needs medical security. “Just the way we are advocating for food security, we also need to advocate for medicine security. The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us a vital lesson that we have ignored for years, and that is the need for pharmaceutical companies to produce drugs and vaccines locally,” Usifoh added.
The PSN president disclosed that one of his five point agenda is to support locally manufacturing pharmaceutical companies, adding that, “We will make sure that the local manufacturing industries are supported.For the local production of drugs and Vaccines to be feasible, Usifoh said the PSN will work with the Nigerian government and refineries like Dangote refinery to convert petrochemicals into Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients , used in the production of drugs.
“PSN will work with the government, we will let them realize that it is important that we have our petrochemicals that are used to produce APIs. When we have the basic APIs, we can start producing a larger percentage of these drugs locally. We plan to pay an advocacy visit to Dangote refinery, to ensure that he puts in place the technology to produce APIs for the production of drugs, to reduce the importation of the ingredients into the country.