Everywhere in the country one goes nowadays, you see unlicensed medicine vendors selling drugs in the streets.
Most of them are people who were not certified by the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, so it is high time for the Ministry of health to put up control measures in order to avert the situation.
The danger about such drugs is that the vendors selling them usually semi-literate lay people only after the income, and they know next to nothing about medicine, not to talk of giving prescriptions.
It is time that the National Pharmaceutical Services and the security services join hands and work closely to address the selling of illegal medicines, especially at the ferry cross points and the weekly village market days called lumos.
We appeal to people to avoid buying such drugs, because it has serious health implications.
We should not compromise with our health, and instead of buying illegal medicines, we have to go and seek for a proper medical care, and get a doctor’s advice or the right prescription before putting our lives at risk.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health has to ensure that anybody who is caught violating the Medicines Act should be prosecuted.
This is the only way to prevent the sales of medicines by people who are unfit to do so.
The only people who are qualified to sell drugs in this country are the medical officers who are licensed and certified by the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare to operate pharmacies in the country.
