The Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN) Enforcement team has sealed 340 premises, including 84 pharmacies and 256 patent medicine shops.
This was disclosed during a press conference in Benin City, by the Registrar of the council, Pharmacist Elijah Muhammed, represented by the Director of Enforcement, Pharmacist Stephen Esumobi said that the team also issued 22 Compliance Directives to premises for various offences, such as poor sanitary conditions, poor documentation and non-display of premises and pharmacist annual licensces during a week long visit to local government areas in Edo State.
He said that those sanctioned were out of the 711premises, comprising 431 patent and proprietary medicine vendors shop and 340 pharmacies visited.
He said that the exercise was the first phase of activities the PCN put in place to streamline the drug distribution system and improve the level of Pharmaceutical service delivery to the people of Edo State.
During the visit, he said that the team observed that owners of many premises engage in the sale of medicines with disregard to laid down guidelines, while most of the patent medicine vendors are either unregistered or registered, but operating far beyond their approved scope.
Nothing that “Facilities that are not subjected to regulatory control cannot be guaranteed to offer acceptable services to the public,” he advised members of the public to source for their medicines from registered and registered pharmacies and over-the-counter medicines from registered proprietary medicine vendors shop.
