The Nigerian pharmacists under the umbrella of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) had accused the Federal Government and the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control for not doing the right thing over the search for cures of COVID-19 in Nigeria.
The Secretary-General of the PSN, Emeka Duru, on Wednesday in an interview with Punch stated the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development had several relevant drugs waiting to be developed.
Duru accused that the Federal Government was not doing enough in encouraging the production of COVID-19 drugs in the country.
According to Duru, “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.”
