Nigeria spends N276bn yearly on pharmaceuticals from China, India

President, Nigerian Association of Pharmacists and Pharmaceutical Scientists in the Americas (NAPPSA), Dr Anthony Ikeme, has express concerns over Nigeria’s increasing import of pharmaceuticals especially from China and India estimated at $600 million (about N276 billion) yearly.

He stressed the need for the federal government to develop and execute a blueprint for the economic development of the pharmaceutical industry that will go along way in addressing its shortcomings.

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“We must robustly and efficiently deploy all facets of our national human resource asset and machinery towards achieving our national pharmaceutical sector strategy” he said.

“Perhaps our greatest failure is in the lack of an actively executed National Strategy for Nigeria’s Pharmaceutical Economic Sector Development. Nigeria must come up with a deliberate and actively executed National Strategy for Pharmaceutical Economic Sector Development. Nothing less will do,” he said.

Dr Ikeme, who delivered his address virtually from the United States at Annual National Conference of the Association of Industrial Pharmacists of Nigeria (NAIP) in Kano said a long overdue blueprint has become more pressing now following the devastation of the coronavirus pandemic, which has further exposed the inherent weaknesses in the nation’s healthcare system.

He said, COVID-19 has exposed the grave danger globally, including for Nigeria, of overreliance on China for most medical and pharmaceutical supplies. Such reliance exposes the country to grave security risks and vulnerabilities, weakens the ability to develop the pharmaceutical sector, and constitute a huge drain on foreign reserves.

In his remarks, President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa said this year’s conference “seeks to consolidate the gains made in its advocacy for the establishment of Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Parks” as NAIP strives to engender an enduring and virile pharmaceutical industry.