The federal government has said that local manufacturing of pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and medical devices is critical to achieving medicines security in Nigeria.
The Director, Food and Drug Services, Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Olubunmi Aribeana, said this at the National Harmonisation Conference 2025 on Friday in Abuja.
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The conference, themed “Contextualising the Presidential Initiative to Achieve Local Production of Medicines and Vaccines in Nigeria”, aimed at expediting local production of medicines and vaccines in the country.
Mrs Aribeana, who was represented by Adeola Olufowobi-Yusuf, said that local manufacturing of pharmaceuticals also presents opportunities for job creation, international trade, economic growth and national security.
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“We cannot afford to be caught flatfooted like during the Covid-19 pandemic,” she said.
“All hands must be on deck to find innovative ways to achieving the goal of unlocking the health sector value chain.
“Nigeria needs to position itself in such a way as to maximally benefit from the African Free Trade Continental Area, which is adjudged to be among the largest in the world.”
She also said that local manufacturing would enhance sufficiency, affordable, accessible, good quality, and also reduce the nation’s reliance on imported goods.
Mrs Aribeana also assured that the ministry would continue developing policies to attract investment and support the All-Government Initiative aimed at strengthening the pharmaceutical sector.
The Supply Chain Management Officer of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Omotayo Hamza, said Nigeria has sufficient policies and strategies in place, but often lacks implementation.
“That is why, for this particular meeting, there is one key word that I love, and that is harmonisation,” he said.
“The Ministry of Trade is doing something about local production; the Ministry of Health is involved in something. Science and Technology too and these are the major stakeholders.
“We need to harmonise along that line for us to have a very strong agenda that is implementable, otherwise, we will have challenges.”
Chinelo Okonkwo, a pharmacist, while speaking on misgivings by some about the efficacy of Nigerian vaccines, said that they could be trusted as they go through all the stages of production before they could be certified fit for use.
According to her, vaccine hesitancy is experienced all over the world and generally, there are adverse events following immunisation, but these are not enough to doubt the efficacy of Nigerian vaccines.
She, however, assured that Nigerian pharmacies are well trained and able to deliver the best vaccines for Nigerians.
“Our trust should be more on Nigerian products than the parallel imports. Vaccine itself is a cold chain molecule and in transporting them, if there is any break in that cold chain, that vaccine may not be potent.
“It is even better that it is produced here so that we can have it safe and efficacious for our people.”
Importance of the conference
The conference facilitator, Olajide Adebola, said that the conference had the national and regional component and that the Presidential Initiative on Healthcare Value Chain (PVAC) had organised the conferences because it was important to have conversations on pharmaceutical issues.
According to him, COVID-19 taught the nation a lot of lessons and the conferences would assess the present state of the sector and come up with viable solutions to achieving the PVAC.
“We will examine how we have been able to fare under these new policies and government interventions, the executive orders?
“Is it reaching the grassroots, what advices and strategic recommendations at this point can we make to the government to update their current policy directions?”
Speaking to the causes of high cost of medicines, Mr Adebola said the cost of the import component of the medicines is the major factor driving up the costs, which would be addressed with the available government interventions in the sector.
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“Some years back, there are some medicines we could not manufacture, we imported them, but now we are manufacturing and that is the importance of having sound, evidence-based, defensible government policies,” he said.
“In near futures, cost of medicines will come down as all stakeholders and actors are acting towards ensuring safe medicines and affordable medicines for Nigeria.”
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the conference brought together relevant stakeholders to create a forum for engagement across public, private, and community sectors to contextualise PVAC.
It would also identify actionable steps for enhancing local production of medicines and vaccines, and provide support in synthesising outcomes into policy and programme recommendations.
(NAN)
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