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From Desmond Mgboh, Kano
The Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN) Thursday announced that it has sealed up a total of 138 pharmacies across Kano State for various offences.
Briefing the media, at the end of the Council enforcement exercise in the state, the Registrar o Pharmacist Elijah Mohammad said that 399 Patent Medicine shops were equally sealed up for similar range of offences.
Represented by the Director , Enforcement, Pharmacist Stephen Esumobi, he explained that their offences included operating without registering with the Council, selling of ethical medicines without the supervision of a Pharmacist, poor documentation , poor storage conditions including unauthorized sales of substances of abuse, among others.
Pharmacist Esumobi further disclosed that 25 other medical outlets , which committed minor breaches were issued with compliance directives by the Council.
He said that in the past one week, the enforcement team had visited 20 local government areas in the state, naming some of the areas visited to include Kano Municipal, Ungogo, Bichi, Wudil Dambatra, Shanono and Rimin Gado among others.
He further explained that in all , they visited a total of 1581 premises in these areas which comprised of 657 pharmacies and 924 patent medicine shoos.
He decried the fact that many patent medicine Shops and medicine dealers in the state were still operating without adequate storage facilities while others have illegal warehouses scattered across the state.
Some of these illegal warehouses have large stock of ethical products and substances of abuse which could easily find their way into the camps of criminal elements in the society” they lamented
“Furthermore, these illegal outlets do not have a Pharmacist to supervise the dispensing of medicines to the public, he said while adding that the activities of these illegal outlets have contributed to the abuse and misuse of controlled medicines with the attendant negative social implications in the society.
