Health Is Wealth” Re-Echoed During the 2024 World Pharmacists Day
Health professionals melted their intellectual packages to highlight the dangers that result from the consumption of roadside drugs and their determination to work towards ameliorated services in pharmacies ; this will greatly discourage patients from relying on them, they pointed out.
They equally used the occasion to arrive at some measures to stop the illicit supply and purchase of street drugs.
In Cameroon,roadside drugs are sold like any other object along the streets without any medical prescription, and this is a stumbling block to public health and the country’s economy.
Sellers of these drugs usually receive patients or sometimes their relatives who come to explain their different illnesses and buy medicines according to the vendor’s prescription .
This prescription by the vendors is sometimes done to the kin, even without seeing the patient or any medical doagnosis attesting to the type of ailment the patient is actually suffering from. All is done on the basis of symptoms related by the kin and the deal is done.
A dozen of street pharmacists we spoke to said they succeed to put food on their tables and sponsor their children’s education thanks to this uncertified profession. Some revealed they are professional pharmacists who do not have the means to afford the financial demands to open a legal pharmacy .
Stopping Cameroonians from buying street drugs remains a hard nut to crack,as many of them to whom we spoke to along the streets of Douala revealed that they rely on road side medications because they are relatively cheaper, compared to prices in pharmacies. » How can i be expected to go and buy malaria drugs for two of my kids from the pharmacy at slightly ten thousand (10.000) CFA francs ,when i can comfortably buy them at the local vendor at five thousand (5.000) CFA frs with the high cost of living we are facing in the country, it is not possible » , one of them confessed.
According to statistics revealed by the National Order of Pharmacists, the annual expenditure on health services in Cameroon is said to have reached 728.1 billion CFAF, which when divided by the number of inhabitant, it amounts to 36000 CFAF spent annually per Cameroonian. Households account for 475 billion, 70.27% of health care
As mentioned by the health experts, this explains why President Paul Biya during his annual speech to the nation on December 31st 2017, assured his compatriots of ameliorated and subsidized health care services through the Universal Health Coverage which is already being implemented.
A measure which leaves many with the thought that it has come to alleviate the high cost of health care services on Cameroonians.
Pharmacies play a vital role in meeting health needs and in ensuring access to essential medicines. Reason why emphasis was laid on the dangers of roadside drugs The world pharmacists day comes up every September 25th, to sensitize against the adverse effects of roadside drugs. »
