NHIA-branded drugs to be prescribed in hospitals soon, says FG

• Published date: 12 January 2023
• Publication title: Nigeria - The Nation

The Executive Secretary, National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Prof. Mohammed Sambo, has said that plans are on to ensure that NHIA-branded drugs are distributed to healthcare facilities and prescribed to NHIA enrolees. He made the disclosure in Abuja during the 17th edition of the President Muhammadu Buhari's administration scorecard series, which featured the Minister of Health, Dr Ehanire.

According to Sambo, the NHIA medicine supply initiative has been established and the committee is working to finalise the selection of companies that will be manufacturing drugs for Nigerians with NHIA branding. He added that the initiative was made up of stakeholders in the process of drugs manufacturing.

'This is so that manufacturers of drugs in Nigeria who have agreed will manufacture drugs with NHIA branding and it will be purchased and distributed to healthcare facilities and that is what will be prescribed to patients. With this no one will say that the drugs they are given at healthcare facilities are fake or substandard and in the next few weeks this system will be in place.

'In the world, there is an essential drug list for health insurance, Nigeria also has such a list, which when it is being established, takes cognisance of the various prevailing health care challenges in the environment,' he said.

He also said that the drugs on that list would be generic, as no one would put branded names on essential drugs list, because branded names were patents, but that scientifically, drugs had their own chemical constituents. He, however, added that all the drugs that would be developed would be in that constituent and that any drug found in any health care facility would work the same way as branded drugs.

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