President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday in Abuja assured pharmaceutical companies in the country of government support to enable them to produce essential drugs locally, instead of relying on wholesale importation.
The president gave the assurance when he received a team of medical experts led by Prof. Olu Akinkugbe.
The team was constituted by the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library to develop an agenda for the health sector in the country.
President Buhari recalled that the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), which he headed in the 1990s, had developed what it called “institutional strengthening,” in which PTF supported pharmaceutical companies with resources to encourage local production of drugs.
“We can revisit the experience. We can strengthen pharmaceutical companies to produce essential drugs needed in the country locally.
“We can then be sure of the quality of such medications,” the President said.
On privatisation of healthcare institutions as canvassed in some quarters, Buhari stressed the need to be careful and take a look at the state of development of the country before considering the option.
He said “privatisation aims at maximum profit. It then excludes the poor and the vulnerable from accessing healthcare.
“But we have to look after the poor,” he said.
The Olu Akinkugbe-led team had earlier given insights into its agenda for the health sector to include proposals on healthcare financing, developing health intelligence/observatory to preempt epidemics, simultaneous focus on primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare.
Akinkugbe said that the team’s agenda also included preventing labour unrest in the health sector, facilitating access to essential drugs through local production and the drug distribution system, among others.
He commended the President for keeping faith with the change doctrine in the country, adding that the current buffeting economic storms were global and not peculiar to Nigeria.
He expressed his belief that “we will surely overcome our challenges.”
