Olawale Ogunlana, a medical doctor popular for dishing health tips on X has offered to provide inhalers to asthmatic Nigerians who are squeezed by the crisis of soaring drug prices in the country.
The health and wellness advocate announced that the distribution of the first batch of the inhalers will commence on Monday at the Ikeja City Mall, Ikeja, Lagos as promised.
He stated that the effort was in collaboration with a group of people concerned about the struggles of those who can no longer afford their drugs due to high costs.
Read also: Price of inhalers surge 450% on worsening FX scarcity
“If you are interested please contact @JenniferOkonewa for registration and verification. We will give as much as we can,” he wrote in a post.
Inhaler, an anti-asthmatic treatment was one of the badly hit treatments in Nigeria after drug prices began to skyrocket in the second half of 2023.
Ventolin inhalers for instance jumped from N2800 in the first quarter of 2023 to N8000 in the last quarter, a 300 percent hike.
Read also: Nigerians resort to cheaper drug variants as prices surge
This followed the exit of GlaxoSmithKline from Nigeria, leading to a huge outcry from affected Nigerians who struggle to find alternatives with the same level of efficacy.
Data released by the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics (NBS) last week show that the value of imported medicines rose by 68 percent to N81.8 billion between July and September 2023, exerting further pressure on drug prices.
About N48.74 billion worth of drugs was imported in the same quarter of 2022.
India is Nigeria’s top import trading partner for drugs, followed by the United States, China, France, and Germany.
