The Pharmacy Council of Nigeria (PCN) has sealed 581 pharmacies and patent medicine shops in Adamawa for breach of operational laws and regulations.

Stephen Esumobi, director, enforcement of the council, disclosed this at a news conference in Yola on Friday.

He said the facilities were sealed when the council’s enforcement team visited 816 pharmacies and medicine shops across the state.

He listed the local government areas visited to include Yola North, Yola South, Mubi North, Mubi South, Girei, Numan, Michika and Demsa.

“The premises sealed include 35 pharmacies, 325 patent medicine shops and 221 illegal medicine shops,” Mr Esumobi said.

The director explained that the storage conditions in many of the premises were inadequate, thus exposing medicines to high temperatures and humidity.

According to him, such medicines will be degraded and become unsuitable for human consumption.

“Similarly, a lot of pharmacies had no superintendent pharmacists to supervise the dispensing of ethical medicines and other products with a narrow margin of safety, while wholesalers were engaged in retail practice.

“Furthermore, so many premises were operating in locations that were not suitable for pharmaceutical business and were asked to relocate”, he said.

Mr Esumobi expressed concern that many of the defaulters were sanctioned during a similar exercise in 2022 but refused to correct the anomalies.

He directed the state PCN officer to sustain effective monitoring of pharmaceutical facilities to ensure compliance with operational guidelines and sanction offenders.

(NAN)