Things to consider when buying drugs from a local store in Nigeria

Posted by Chidinma on Wednesday May 6, 2015 at 15:10:8:

Most Nigerians are very used to visiting local drug stores to purchase drugs both with or without a doctor’s prescription as there are mostly no legal requirements for drug stores to only sell to those recommended by Doctors.

When proper care is not taken, a drug taker may end up purchasing drugs that can cause more harm to his body system instead of serving as a cure to his illness especially. This is what self medication involves and it's very common in a country like Nigeria where people are more concerned on how to make money than safety of people’s lives.

How does an average Nigerian stay safe even when he's buying drugs he already knows that works for him? How does he remain safe if he is buying basic drugs like a anti-malarial or even pain killer?

Some of the things to consider when buying drugs from a local store in Nigeria in order to stay safe includes;

1. Checking the Expiration date: This is the first thing you have to check even before you start talking about price and payment; most local drug store owners don’t always check their stock to check for drugs that have expired and in their lousy nature will still present the drug to customers without bothering to check out for the expiration day; so it is the duty of you the customer to inspect the expiration date on the drug to ensure that the drug have not reached its expiration date.

2. Check if it is legally approved: The body that is in charge of inspection of drugs in Nigeria is NAFDAC; and it is the duty of NAFDAC to inspect and ensure that all drugs are safe for human consumption and only drugs that meet the required standards are given the NAFDAC Certification number; so after checking the expiration date of the drug, the next thing to check is to the NAFDAC number to show that the drug is safe for consumption. SON is another agency that ensures that publicly available drugs have been manufactures with the right standards.

3. Doctor's approval: Although some drugs can easily be purchased from over the counter and taken without an express doctor's approval such as some anti-malarials, it's normally a good thing to also get to know first if your Doctor already approves of it most especially if it's a relatively new drug in the market. You may need to ask you Doctor the first time you are about to try out a drug so that it doesn't become a big health problem

4. Allergy: You may be allergic to some drugs even without you knowing and so it's normally good to only buy drugs that contain contents that your body doesn't react negatively to. It's even better to only take drugs you are already used to rather than taking new ones.