Medicines in Lagos are easy to buy and harder to trust. Almost anything can be had over a counter without a prescription, and counterfeit and substandard drugs are a real problem, not a rumour. A few habits deal with most of it.
A pharmacy is not a chemist
Two kinds of shop sell medicines, and they are licensed for different things.
- A pharmacy is registered with the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria and must have a pharmacist in charge. It may dispense prescription-only medicines. Its premises licence should be displayed.
- A patent medicine store — the neighbourhood “chemist” — is licensed to sell only over-the-counter medicines, in their original packs. It is not meant to sell antibiotics or other prescription drugs, or to diagnose you. Many do both.
For anything beyond paracetamol and plasters, go to a pharmacy and ask for the pharmacist. Large chains and hospital pharmacies are the safest source.
Check that the medicine is genuine
- A NAFDAC registration number should be printed on every pack. A medicine with none is not registered for sale in Nigeria.
- The scratch code. Many medicines, antimalarials and antibiotics especially, carry a scratch panel under NAFDAC’s Mobile Authentication Service. Scratch it and text the code to the short number printed beside it; the reply says whether the pack is genuine. Use it.
- The pack itself. Blurred printing, misspellings, a different look from the last pack of the same brand, or an expiry date on a sticker rather than printed into the pack are reasons to put it down.
- The price. A branded medicine far cheaper than everywhere else is cheap for a reason.
Report a suspect medicine to NAFDAC. A pharmacist who sold it to you should want to know too.
Antibiotics and antimalarials
Both are sold freely and both are the drugs it matters most to get right.
Antimalarials. The recommended treatment is an artemisinin-based combination, taken as a full course. Monotherapies and half courses are part of why some drugs no longer work. Get tested before you treat: a fever in Lagos is often malaria and not always.
Antibiotics. Buying them over the counter for a cold is common and does nothing for a virus. If you need one, take the whole course a doctor gives you, not the three days it takes to feel better.
Prescriptions
A prescription from a Lagos doctor is a handwritten or printed note naming the medicine, the dose and the duration. Keep a photo of it. If you take a regular medicine, carry its generic name, not only the brand: the same drug is often sold here under a different brand from the one you know.
Heat is bad for medicines
Most medicines are meant to be stored below about the temperature of a cool room, and a Lagos car, bag or shelf in a room with no power is far above it. Keep them out of the sun and out of a parked car. Anything that should be refrigerated — insulin, some vaccines, some eye drops — needs a plan for when the power goes off.