While it is in order to commend and congratulate NDA and it’s management for being vigilant in reining in those errant so called drug shops who are stocking fake, expired and substandard drugs or the clinics that are dispensing medical services in rather unhealthy and often dangerous environments, there is a need for the NDA and the policy makers to look at what is going on far beyond the closures and confiscations.
Ever since NDA commenced being vigilant in inspection and enforcement, scores of drug shops, pharmacies and clinics have been shut down, millions of drugs confiscated and probably destroyed over years. These rather ruthless measures are undertaken by NDA to serve as deterrent to those that are engaged in the vice.
However, as we all now know, the habit of stocking drug shops with fake, substandard or expired drugs seems to continue unabated and this is the reason why each and every attempted operation by NDA in whichever corner of the country, it yields amazingly large swoops of culprits.
This has and continues to go on each year in and year out.
It is time for there to be a practical mechanism in the licensing, import clearance and supervision that should be geared at reducing and even curbing all together these unscrupulous drug shop operators in the country.
Currently, the vigilance of NDA that ends up closing the culprit drug shops seems to act like a conveyor belt that the culprit drug operators enjoy the ride that eventually gives them opportunity to go back to their own business maybe at the same location as before but also may be to relocate to another place.
If this vicious cycle isn’t deliberately broken, obviously the operations by NDA will just continue year in and year out with no practical abetting of the vice.
