The Federal Government has said it will  introduce Drug Coordinated Wholesale Centres (CWCs) across the nation  to check the menace of fake and falsified medical products in the country even as it warned that by 31st of December 2018 all open drug markets will be permanently shutdown.

Prof Isaac Adewole,  the Minister of Health, made this known at a stakeholders’ workshop organised by the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO) on “The prevention, Detection and Response of  Substandard and Falsified medical Products”.

The Minister said the new measure was designed to allow drugs to be sourced directly from the importers or manufacturers down to the end users instead of buying drugs from the open drug markets.

According to him, the Federal Ministry of Health had already developed National Drug Distribution Guidelines, NDDG, in 2012 to address the unsatisfactory chaotic drug distribution system in the country.

He said;  “Coordinated Wholesale Centres to accommodate open market medicines sellers have been approved and are being developed in Lagos, Onitsha, Aba and Kano and CWCs will commence operation by January 1st 2019.”