The effects of fake drugs in Nigeria is quite massive. It is better imagined than experienced.
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Introduction
The problem of fake drugs is an issue Nigeria has had to grapple with over the years.
In this blog post, we are going to be looking at the effects of fake drugs in Nigeria.
What are fake drugs?
When we talk of fake drugs, we mean drugs that do not meet the requirements.
Requirements are in terms of the standards.
In Nigeria for instance, drugs pass through the National Agency for Food Drug Administrations and Control (NAFDAC). This is the agency charged with the responsibility of ensuring that drugs in circulation within the country are fit for public use.
Drugs need to meet some standard requirements in order to be used.
So what happens with fake drug is that the drugs do not meet this standard and are of low quality or outright not the labelled drug.
According to NAFDAC, about 13-15% of the drugs currently in circulation in Nigeria are fake. This is a large chunk of the drug market. Now you understand why we are devoting time to look atbthe effects of fake drugs especially in Nigeria.
Who is involved in fake drugs?
Fake drugs are imported or manufactured by unscrupulous people.
Some of them may have some pharmaceutical background and thus manipulate the process; some may not.
We regularly hear the news of fake drugs being seized in different parts of Nigeria.
This goes on to show the importance of the fake drug issues, which warranted the establishment of NAFDAC.
This leads us to the next important question about what people benefit from faking the drugs.
Why do people fake drugs?
The main reason is for profit, pure and simple.
Nigeria is a country with over 200 million people.
It thus has a potential for any kind of business.
The people that fake drugs need a large demand base in order to perpetrate their dastardly acts.
Health is one of the most important needs of man. When people fall sick, they mostly do anything within their capacity in order to recover fully.
This includes buying drugs or medications when prescribed by the doctors.
Thus, people fake drugs believing that people will come to look for the drugs and will buy their fake productcs without discovering they are fake.
Now we look at the effects of fake drugs in Nigeria.
5 Effects Of Fake Drugs In Nigeria
The effects of fake drugs in Nigeria are as follows:
Loss of lives
This is one the most important effect of fake drugs in Nigeria.
Imagine somebody having a critical sickness and then there’s a drug that is prescribed for the person that can save the person’s life if taken in a particular dosage.
The person’s relations struggle to raise some money and buy the drugs and the drug is given to the sick person.
However, unknown to them, the quality of these drugs has been reduced by as much as 80% and remember, this person is in a life threatening condition.
The result is that the person is not responding as he should.
He may not even be responding at all and the person keeps getting worse.
At the end of the day, person dies.
In spite of the fact that drugs are prescribed and procured, the person eventually dies.
This is what can happen when somebody is treated with fake drugs.
It can lead to loss of lives.
Loss of money
These fake drugs are mostly sold at or near the price of the original drugs.
So when someone buys a drug which is fake adult, rated at the price of the standard drug, the person wastes his money at the end of the day for a drug that doesn’t work.
Lack of trust in the Nigerian health system
The issue of fake drugs leads to loss of trust in the Nigerian health system.
Imagine adoptorizing medications for you and then resources from you, buy a drug, and unknown to you is fake drug.
Then you begin to take this drug.
Days or even weeks down the line, you still haven’t gotten any relief from the ailment.
This may make it to lose confidence and the doctor and start questioning his level of competence. It ultimately leads to loss of confidence in the Nigerian health system.
This is a major effect of fake drugs in Nigeria. When people take some drugs that are prescribed by their doctors and they discover that these drugs don’t work, at the end of the day, they begin to look at the doctors as if they don’t even know what they are doing.
So this tends to give the doctors and even the Nigerian health system a very bad name, both within and outside Nigeria.
Bad image of Nigerians
People outside Nigeria will definitely be amazed. They will presume that since fake drugs can be produced in Nigeria, Nigerians can literally fake anything.
We can also look at it from another angle. When someone with a medical condition and is on drugs, wants to visit Nigeria for a whole, the person will be worried as to how to access genuine drugs while still in Nigeria.
In summary, drugs from Nigeria are actually looked at suspicion by people that don’t reside in Nigeria because of these issues of faking of drugs.
At the end of the day, this takes back the hand of the clock as part of the efforts to present a good image of Nigeria to the outside world.
Proliferation of fake drugs in Nigeria contributes very much to the decline in people’s trust in Nigerian goods and services.
Emotional or Psychological stress
Imagine going through somebody sick and the relationships they keep running around trying to do everything they’ve been told corporate to the health personnel in order to ensure that the person recovers or gets relief from the sickness.
Unfortunately, they discover that as they
take the fake drugs and the person doesn’t get better.
This leads to more stress on the part of both the people that are sick as well as their caregivers.
A lot of uncertainties, anxiety and worries come into play.
The caregivers are worried because the sick person is not getting better despite all their efforts.
So this leads to stress on everybody’s part.
Wrapping Up
What we have done in this blog post is to look at the effects of fake drugs in Nigeria. Of course, all are negative effects.
There is no benefit in producing fake drugs as it has deleterious effects on humans and the country as a whole.
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