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Tag: Syringe

  • Local syringe production: Senate issues six-week ultimatum to health Minister

    Local syringe production: Senate issues six-week ultimatum to health Minister

    The Senate on Thursday directed the Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire to put together a policy to compel all government hospitals to procure locally manufactured syringes.

    The Senate Committee on Health gave the Minister a six-week ultimatum to carry out the directive.

    The Committee gave the directive during an interactive meeting with local manufacturers of pharmaceutical products, the Ministers of Health and Trade and Investment as well as the Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC).

    The committee is investigating the failure of government agencies to implement the Backward Integration Policy (BIP), on local production of syringes five years after it was validated.

    Members of the committee say it is alarming that despite the capacity of local manufacturers to meet the market demands, an estimated 1 billion units of syringes and needles are imported into the country per annum.

    The Senate had earlier in April summoned the Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire; Minister of Trade and Investment, Niyi Adebayo and the Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration, NAFDAC, Professor Mojisola Adeyeye to appear before it over failure to implement the Backward Integration Policy (BIP), on local production of syringes five years after it was validated.

    Chairman, Senate Committee on Health, Ibrahim Oloriegbe, at the investigative hearing took a swipe at NAFDAC for licensing companies in India and China to import syringes into the country.

    “You can’t keep licensing agents outside Nigeria to import syringes, while local firms are dying,” Oloriegbe lamented.

  • JUST IN: Aisha Buhari talks tough, says ‘Aso Rock Clinic does not have a single syringe’

    The wife of the President, Aisha Buhari, has revealed that the Aso Rock Clinic does not have enough drugs in its store despite the billions of naira allocated to running it.

    Aisha who was obviously enraged said she was forced to seek the services of a private healthcare provider when those in Aso Rock Clinic could not provide her with what she needed.

    Speaking Monday at a stakeholders meeting on Reproductive, Maternal, Nutrition, Child Advocacy and Health and Nutrition, RMNCAH+N, at the State House, Abuja, Mrs. Buhari said she recently fell ill and was advised to travel to London for treatment, but she refused.

    “I called the Aso Clinic to find out if they have an X-Ray machine, they said it’s not working.

    “In the end I had to go to a hospital owned and operated by foreigners 100 percent.

    “There is a budget for the Hospital and if you go there now, you will see a number of constructions going on but they don’t have a single syringe there. What is the purpose of the buildings if there are no equipment there to work with?”

    “You can imagine what happens across the states to governors wives if this will happen to me in Abuja,” she said.