Dr. Audu Mohammed, the Coordinator, National Malaria Elimination Programme (NMEP), on Monday, said Federal Government would empower local manufacturers to produce malaria drugs locally.
He told News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja that government would be doing this through the World Health Organisation (WHO) prequalification progrmme.
He said the prequalification Programme, set up in 2001, was a service provided by WHO to facilitate access to medicines that met unified standards of quality, safety and efficacy for HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.
The coordinator added that NMEP had applied for fund from three donors – World Bank, Islamic Development Bank and Africa Development Bank to support manufacturers and buy malaria live-saving commodities.
He noted that “World Bank has promised to give us about N200 million dollars, the Islamic Development Bank — 100 million dollars and African Development Bank — 64 million dollars.
“We want to use part of the innovation fund to empower local manufacturers to produce malaria drugs.
“Most of the malaria drugs are imported because our local manufacturers have challenges, they need to have WHO global manufacturing practice, which only 46 manufacturers have in the country.
“They also need to be pre-qualified by WHO.
“However, we are now working with WHO to empower many of our manufacturers to have that prequalification; by so doing, we will also patronise them to buy these commodities as local content.
“This will enable us to employ more youths in the manufacturing industry and we will also be exporting drugs to other countries when our capacity improves.”
Mohammed, however, called on corporate bodies to support the effort of the government to eliminate malaria, saying “you do not wait for donors before you address your problems.
“We want to call on National Assembly, states and philanthropists to increase funding for malaria because the more you have domestic funding, the more you can address your problem.’’
