The Minister of Industry, Trade, and Investment, Dr Doris Uzoka Anite, has disclosed the government’s readiness to support an increase in the local production of medical equipment like syringes and needles in Nigeria.
Speaking in Abuja at a meeting with the Minister of State for Health, Tunji Alausa, and members of the Medical Device Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, Anite explained that the engagement will give confidence to manufacturers in the health sector in the country.
It will be recalled that a few months ago, a British pharmaceutical company, GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Nigeria, Sanofi, and other health companies ended their operations in Nigeria due to an unfriendly business environment.
In addressing the challenges facing health manufacturers, Anite stated that the federal government is ready to support the sector to improve the production of locally made medical equipment.
“The mandate that we have been given by the president is to fix every problem in Nigeria, especially problems that affect manufacturers in all sectors of the economy. And at the last FEC meeting, we took the healthcare sector specifically to understand the challenges.”.
She stated further that “the president wants to ensure that the prices of manufactured equipment drop and citizens have greater access to these medicines at affordable rates but of high quality.
“The government is ready to remove all impending bottlenecks in industrialization, manufacturing, or the real sector in Nigeria, and we have just done that for the health instrument sector.
“Now that we have the presidential backing to fix it as quickly as possible, I can only assure you that everything we discuss here will be taken care of and expedited. Some of these things are just policy changes we need to make.
They’re not necessarily such big problems, but when we understand where the problem is, how to fix it and come up with the right policies, we can solve the problem and get the country to grow.
“We have designed a backward integration programme that incorporates policies that affect medical devices and entire health care. We are going to launch that programme with the approval of the federal executive council soon.
I am sure it will be a game-changer for the medical device industry for full capacity utilisation. There will be enticing incentives to support the industry and loaded incentives,” the minister said.
While also speaking, the Minister of State for Health, Tunji Alausa, noted that “over the past several years, we have had a strong importation of needles and syringes to Nigeria while our local manufacturing companies suffer.
“The mission is to reduce the cost of pharmaceutical products in the country as well as medical supplies in the country.
We have discussed the challenges, explored practical solutions where we can begin to have some quick wins, and identified immediate solutions that we will be incorporating into the executive order that the president has asked us to work on and propose as medium-term solutions to this issue.
“We have addressed all the issues that will put the industry on the path of sustainability, where they can begin to create durable, well-paying jobs for our citizens and ensure we have high-quality syringes and needles that would not harm our citizens as they go to our hospitals and facilities to seek care,” he stated.
The meeting was attended by major health equipment manufacturers like Afrimedical Manufacturing and Supplies Limited and HMA Medical Limited, among others.
. TheWitness
