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FG not doing enough to encourage production of COVID-19 drugs – PSN

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The Secretary-General of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria [PSN], Emeka Duru, has accused the Federal Government of not doing enough to encourage the production of COVID-19 drugs in the country.

Duru’s allegation comes after the Director-General of NAFDAC, Prof Mojisola Adeyeye, had in a statement earlier on Wednesday, said the agency had received only one application for the treatment of COVID-19 symptoms.

According to her, claims on the COVID-19 cure are domiciled in either the conventional news media or social media.

But Duru insisted that the FG and NAFDAC were not looking at research products by the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development (NIPRD).

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Duru said,

“People are saying, ‘We are here, we can do this.’ The Ministry of Health just made available a cough syrup that can be used to ameliorate the kind of cough you have in COVID-19 patients.

“That drug now has been sent to NAFDAC for it to validate, list that drug after clinical trials and tell the producer it can be brought into the market for use.

“If you go to the NIPRD also, it has a lot of research products on its shelves and nobody is looking its way. It has malaria medicines, antiviral medicines, and cough syrups that only require money to develop them into products.”

According to him, all the Federal Government needs to do is devote a portion of the COVID-19 funds to research.

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The PSN secretary noted that the Department of Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicine, under the Ministry of Health, was “established to develop raw active ingredients that can be formulated into drugs that can be taken.”

Duru added,

“What the PSN is saying is that the Federal Government is free to get whatever (drug) it wants into the country to solve our problem, but then, it cannot ignore relevant (Nigerian) professors.

“Prof Maurice Iwu has his own product he wants the Federal Government to look at. Nobody is saying we should just bring it out just like that and start taking it. But there are protocols.

“If our researchers’ products are subjected to the right protocols, clinical trials, list them and keep those ones, then you would understand them.”

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