May and Baker Nigeria PLC, producers of Maysedyl, a cough syrup with codeine has cried out as it announced the loss of over N1B alone more than 19 months after the ban of codeine.
It revealed that it lost N700 million in annual income and loss of raw materials and finished products worth over N350 million.
Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer May and Baker Nigeria PLC, Nnamdi Okafor said most pharmaceutical manufacturers are contending not only with the loss of revenue but funds already invested in finished and raw materials, urging the Federal government to help pharmaceutical companies to pay for the drugs and sell them under strict monitoring and control.
Its product, Maysedyl is prescribed for dry irritating unproductive coughs nasal decongestion, colds and allergic conditions involving the airways.
This outcry is coming months after the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control revealed that it would cost N1B to reimburse all manufacturers for the ban.
Ban of Codeine in Nigeria
With record consumption of 3 million bottles of codeine daily, the federal government had no choice but to ban the sale of codeine-containing cough syrup without prescription across the country on May 1st, 2018.
Codeine is an opiate used to treat pain, coughing, and diarrhoea with addiction as a major side effect.
Codeine cough syrup is produced on an industrial scale; dozens of Nigerian companies legally manufacture it.
The ban meant that no new import permits were issued for codeine as an ingredient for cough syrups and new applications for and renewals of licenses of syrups containing it was scrapped.
DG of NAFDAC, Mojisola Adeyeye in reacting to the ban said:
“The reaction of the government is very good because the ban should be in place until we reevaluate all the processes, regulatory processes, manufacturing controls, drug distribution controls, and if we then find out that we could have restricted use of codeine-containing medicine”
Following a BBC documentary, on the abuse and illegal sale of codeine, NAFDAC raided Peace Standard Pharmaceutical Limited, Bioraj Pharmaceutical Limited, and Emzor Pharmaceuticals Ind. Ltd. And due to insufficient evidence gathered and resistance to provide needed documents during the inspection, NAFDAC shut down these companies but later reopened them.
Barely 7 months into the ban, the Nigerian government said it had recalled at least 2.5 million bottles of codeine-based cough syrup from circulation nationwide.
More:
–FG to Pay N1bn as Compensation for Codeine Seizures
–FG Recalls 2.5m Bottles of Codeine
–NAFDAC shuts down on fake products across Nigeria
To carry out enforcement, Nigeria with over 200M in population will have to rely on its drug law enforcement agency which was revealed to Roots TV by its spokesperson, Femi Oloruntobi as having only 4,778 officers and not more than 120 serviceable vehicles all over the nation.
This harsh reality begs the question, what is the fate of the codeine ban if one pharmaceutical company is claiming to have lost N1b alone the same amount FG wants to use in compensating all pharmaceutical companies and NDLEA can barely enforce for lack of resources?
Like NDLEA once said to Roots TV in an interview, “Drug enforcement is the responsibility of everybody. If you leave it to NDLEA alone, we cannot make it”
