Pharmacists Are Strategic Partners In Building Healthier Societies – Minister

Coordinating curate of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Muhammad Ali Pate, has emphasised that pharmacists are not conscionable dispensers of medicine but strategical partners successful gathering healthier and much resilient societies.

Prof. Pate made this known successful Abuja during a ministerial property briefing to people Nigeria’s maiden commemoration of World Pharmacists Day 2025, themed “Think Health, Think Pharmacists.”

Represented by the manager overseeing the Office of the Permanent Secretary and Head of the Health Nutrition Department, Mrs. Ladidi Bako-Ayegbusi, the curate highlighted the captious relation of the profession, adding that pharmacists person go frontline wellness professionals crossed the country; accessible, trusted, and indispensable.

“From authorities cities to distant villages, they service arsenic the archetypal constituent of interaction for millions seeking healthcare guidance, medication, and preventive services. Pharmacists are not lone providing idiosyncratic wellness platforms, they are strengthening the precise instauration of our nationalist wellness system,“ helium stated.

The curate besides noted important argumentation milestones achieved successful the sector, including the instauration of the National Drug Policy, the e-Pharmacy Policy, and the precocious launched eighth variation of the National Essential Medicines List. These reforms, helium said, align with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, which prioritizes strengthening healthcare infrastructure, promoting section pharmaceutical manufacturing, and investing successful quality superior development.

“Without the trusted and committed pharmacists, we volition not beryllium capable to execute these goals,” Pate remarked, adding that authorities is retraining and retooling professionals to guarantee that pharmaceutical grooming remains successful enactment with planetary standards.

He further highlighted achievements successful Nigeria’s pharmacy sector, including the constitution of nationwide pharmacovigilance centres done NAFDAC, maturation successful section pharmaceutical manufacturing, and the enlargement of objective pharmacy signifier crossed hospitals and superior healthcare centres. These strides, helium noted, bespeak the resilience, innovation, and professionalism of Nigerian pharmacists.

Calling for stronger collaboration, the curate urged backstage assemblage players, individuals, and planetary partners to afloat leverage the imaginable of pharmacies. He emphasized the request for corporate concern successful pharmacy education, workforce development, research, and regulatory enforcement to destruct counterfeit and substandard medicines.

“Nigeria is simply a large country, and we are going to beryllium the hub of medicine successful Africa. Together, we are shaping a aboriginal wherever each Nigerian has entree to safe, effective, and affordable medicine,” Pate said.