The inability of diabetic patients in Nigeria to access and afford medication for treatment has restricted proper treatment of the ailment, according to the Association of Community Pharmacists of Nigeria (ACPN).
This was stated by Adewale Oladigbolu, national chairman, ACPN in a statement issued to celebrate the 2021 World Diabetes Day as declared by the World Health Organisation (WHO) themed access to Diabetes care: If not now, when?
“The situation of diabetes care in Nigeria is very sub-optimal marked by inequality and lack of access to diabetes care, high cost of medicines, lack of quality assurance checks for service providers in the healthcare system, and disorderly drug distribution system with its siamese twin of a pool of poor medicines,” Oladigbolu said.
He said that about six million adult Nigerians are diabetic while an estimated two-thirds of the diabetes cases in Nigeria remain undiagnosed.
He added that confusion and disorderliness in the drug distribution system in Nigeria have worsened the quality of most valuable pharmaceutical products designed to alleviate the suffering of diabetic patients and have made it very difficult for these patients to get to treatment.
“Nearly 100 years after the discovery of insulin and other diabetes control medications, these drugs remain largely unavailable and unaffordable for the majority of Nigerians,” he said.
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He added that many of the antidiabetics are temperature-sensitive and that the lack of effort by the Federal Ministry of Health in ensuring that medicines are not sold in the open markets means many of the medications may have lost a substantial part of their potency before reaching the final users.
ACPN called on Osagie Ehanirèe, Minister for Health, Federal Republic of Nigeria to immediately order the closure of all Open Drug Markets in Nigeria.
“We also call on the Ministry of Health to call the National Health Insurance Scheme to order on the misinterpretation of her guideline and the misdirection of her payment mechanism that has kept the coverage of health insurance in Nigeria at an abysmally low level and one which keep undermining the well being of people living with diabetes,” he said.
He warned that if not promptly addressed, the lives of Nigerians will be put at high risk.
He revealed that the association has commissioned a countrywide Community Pharmacy-Based Diabetes Education Program, which is a 12-month, individualized care program based on Standardised Diabetes Self-Management Education Programs.
“This collaborative study will enrol over one thousand diabetic patients nationwide and it will be characterized by baseline clinical and pharmacotherapy, assessment of baseline diabetes knowledge of patients, community pharmacists interventions {Diabetes Education/Pharmaceutical care} at scheduled visits, and the results of changes in clinical values and quality of lives of the patients at the end of the study,” he said.
He called for collaboration from Pharmaceutical companies and other healthcare professionals to participate in the study.
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