1 month ago
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By Chioma Obinna
Following soaring costs of healthcare and cause shortages successful the country, millions of Nigerians are compelled to question alternate sources of purchasing drugs that are comparatively cheaper and affordable.
Their desperation to find cure for their ailments astatine affordable costs has nevertheless made galore autumn victims of scammers connected the societal media who committedness them a imperishable solution to the problems but they extremity up with worse situations.
Nigerians hopeless for affordable healthcare are present gambling with their lives arsenic societal media has turned into an unregulated pharmacy. Patients are going blind, suffering kidney failures, and adjacent dying aft taking counterfeit oregon unprescribed medicines sold online. Unfortunately, this caller soundless epidemic is unfolding—not successful infirmary wards, but done telephone screens and societal media feeds. Medical complications are nary longer far; they’re delivered to the doorstep.
From Instagram stories to WhatsApp messages and Facebook broadcasts, drugs are being marketed, sold, and delivered crossed Nigeria with conscionable a fewer clicks; nary prescription, nary diagnosis, and nary aesculapian supervision. Medications for ailments specified arsenic reddish eyes, ulcers, diabetes, precocious humor pressure, infertility, and prostate issues are readily disposable online, often promoted arsenic speedy fixes. In a state that parades an unenviable beingness expectancy betwixt 54 and 64 years, which placed it arsenic the world’s shortest successful 2025, what started arsenic a convenience has softly metamorphosed into a nationalist wellness hazard.
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Today, with a azygous tap, users are exposed to a flood of healthcare merchandise advertisements: from herbal detox teas and anti-hypertensives to crab remedies, value nonaccomplishment pills, arthritis cures, and ulcer treatments. These products are aggressively promoted crossed Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, and different integer platforms. Many trust connected unverifiable testimonials and pseudo-scientific claims to summation traction, often targeting hopeless oregon uninformed consumers.
But nationalist wellness experts and regulatory authorities are sounding the alarm. They warned that without contiguous intervention, this unregulated integer cause marketplace could substance a full-scale wellness situation that Nigeria’s already fragile healthcare strategy whitethorn not beryllium equipped to handle.
According to them, these medicines sold online are contributing to a surge successful preventable complications specified arsenic kidney and liver failure, abrupt blindness, strokes, and adjacent deaths.
But successful astir cases, the harm is done softly unseen until it becomes irreversible.
Findings by Saturday Vanguard amusement that the merchantability of unregulated healthcare products online is nary longer conscionable a increasing inclination but besides a ticking nationalist wellness clip bomb. Pharmacists, doctors, and regulators are raising alarm bells, but enforcement remains anemic successful the look of a fast-growing integer cause bazaar.
The existent development, according to experts, has escalated the prevalent signifier of self-medication successful Nigeria and the satellite astatine large. And this poses important wellness risks and has far-reaching implications for nationalist health. While identifying the superior drivers of self-medication successful Nigeria arsenic constricted entree to healthcare, inadequate healthcare services, which person prompted individuals to trust connected online medications oregon location remedies, doctors say, it tin pb to higher healthcare costs successful the agelong run. They said complications arising from self-treatment tin necessitate much extended aesculapian interventions.
Victims of online cause purchase
Amaka
When Amaka, a 23-year-old student, noticed her eyes turning reddish and watery, she did what galore of her peers present do. She opened Instagram, searched for “best oculus drops for reddish eyes,” and recovered a vendor who promised instant whitening, nary medicine needed. A vessel was delivered to her hostel doorway the aforesaid evening. At first, the drops worked similar magic arsenic her eyes cleared astir instantly. But wrong 2 weeks, her imaginativeness became blurred, and she began shielding her eyes from light. At a Lagos oculus clinic, doctors discovered she had been utilizing a potent ste...
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