The impact of drug misuse and abuse has become a major source of concern globally. In developing countries such as Nigeria, unrestricted access to both controlled and uncontrolled drugs, coupled with wrong prescription have led to many loss of lives.
Despite the severe health consequences, many Nigerians still abuse drugs, forgetting that every drug is a potential poison.
The abuse of antibiotics, for instance, has assumed a worrisome dimension. According to experts, antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest threats to global health, food security, and development today.
Antibiotics resistance has been found to cause higher medical costs, prolonged hospital stays, and increased mortality.
The World Health Organisation, in its 2017 report, titled, “The world is running out of antibiotics” revealed that a growing number of infections – such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, gonorrhoea, and salmonellosis – were becoming harder to treat as the antibiotics used to treat them become less effective due to their constant abuse and misuse .
‘Antimicrobial resistance is a global health emergency that will seriously jeopardize progress in modern medicine,” says WHO Director- General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“There is an urgent need for more investment in research and development for antibiotic-resistant infections including TB, otherwise we will be forced back to a time when people feared common infections and risked their lives from minor surgery” he added.
Antibiotics, experts say, are medicines used to prevent and treat bacterial infections and resistance occurs when bacteria change in response to the use of these medicines.
Recent revelations have shown the urgent need to change the way drugs are prescribed and used to reduce the rate at which many Nigerians are coming down with life-threatening ailments such as organ failure.
Even if new medicines are developed, experts say, without behavioural change, antibiotic resistance for instance will remain a major threat.
To save Nigeria from the hazards of drug misuse and abuse ,Nigerians have been cautioned against irrational use of drugs.
Harping on the dangers of drug misuse and the need to check the rising menace , a renowned pharmacist, Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa, said Nigerians must be wary of the drugs they take to avoid putting their lives at risk.
Ohuabunwa, who is President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, said, ”Every drug can kill if used wrongly. Drug use can have a wide range of short- and long-term, direct and indirect effects. No matter the type of drug, evidence has shown that drug abuse and misuse come with serious consequences when it comes to physical health. Notwithstanding the drug of choice, abuse can lead to lung and cardiovascular disease, stroke, various kinds of cancer, to name a few.”
Ohuabunwa noted that every drug is a potential poison if not properly used.
He said as a result of unrestricted access to drugs, people now abuse drugs at will. According to him, instead of using drugs for therapeutic effects, they are now using them for their side effects.
Urging Nigerians to stop indiscriminate use of drugs or face serious organ damage, Ohuabunwa said, ” Many may not get every drug on prescription but every drug must be used on the guidance of a pharmacist.
“You must interface with a pharmacist before you take any drug. Every drug must come with an advice from a pharmacist.”
Listing ways of tackling drug abuse and misuse, he said government must start with control by ensuring that pharmacists were at the centre of issues that have to do with drugs in the country.
” Because drugs are not under the control of pharmacists, everybody now has access to medicine, including tramadol. Government must therefore enforce the pharmacy law and restore the control of drugs to pharmacists.
Another pharmacist and Head, United States Pharmacopeia, Dr. Chimezie Anyakora ,told our correspondent that every drug becomes a poison if not used well.
” If you use medicine well for an ailment, it can cure you. But if used wrongly, it can kill you.
“Also, if drugs are not properly stored, the quality becomes an issue and when people take them, they can also cause a serious harm to their body. Medicine quality is a very big issue and one of the biggest killer in the world,” he said.
A former Chairman, Lagos State Association of Community Pharmacists of Nigeria, Pharm. Aminu Yinka Abdusalam, also lamented the risk of drug misuse.
Abdusalam maintained that the abuse of drugs such as antibiotics, creates problems for the user and jeopardises the future use of such antibiotics..
“When drugs are abused or misused, the end does not augur well. When antibiotics are misused, organisms causing the problem develop resistance and subsequently reduces effectiveness of the drugs.
“Every medicine is a potential poison if not administered properly. Due to wrong administration of medicines, many Nigerians are coming down with life threatening illnesses, including kidney problems and heart related diseases,” he said.
