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The Federal Government has failed to keep to its commitment to make available $3m annually for contraceptive commodities and services.

This is fuelling maternal mortality,  which claims five women every hour, according to the Association for the Advancement of Family Planning.

The Chairman, Local Organising Committee of AAFP, Dr. Ejike Oji, stated this in Abuja on Tuesday at a briefing ahead of its fourth National Family Planning Conference.

According to him, the current statistic of maternal mortality stands at five deaths in every one hour, thereby making Nigeria home to the second largest number of maternal deaths after India.

He said, “As others celebrate increase in the use of contraception across the globe, Nigeria happens to be one of the poor performing countries  there,  the reason being largely that family planning programmes have not been given priority and funded as such.

“At the family planning summit in London, Nigeria made a commitment to add $8.3m to the existing agreement to provide $3m annually for contraceptive commodities, bringing it to $11.3m.

“To date only about $3 million or so has been released since 2012. The FG only released $1m in 2012, there was no release in 2013,. It was in 2014 that it released $2m while nothing was released in 2015.”

According to Oji, Nigeria currently has a maternal mortality ratio of 576 deaths in every 100,000 live births, which is about 40,000 women dying every year, 111 dying every day, or five people dying every hour.

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The District Governor, Rotary International District 9110, Mr. Patrick Ikheola, has said that the club identifies with the effort of the Federal Government to eradicate poliomyelitis in the country.

Ikheola expressed the hope that the club’s efforts, in the areas of public enlightenment and funding, would assist in restoring the country to its status of a polio-free one.

He said this on Monday when he paid a courtesy visit to the Rotary Club of Ogudu GRA, Lagos.

The visit was part of the district governor’s annual duties in the 2016/2017 Rotary year to familiarise himself with the club and to provide support and mentoring.

Ikheola said, “Our focus and concern is to eradicate polio. Two years ago, the country was declared polio-free; but just of recent, we had three cases in the North as a result of the Sambisa forest that had not been accessed in the past.

“We are hopeful that what we are doing now, enlightening parents on the need to immunise their children and funding, will go a long way in restoring the country to its status as a polio-free country.”

Ikheola, on behalf of the Rotary Club of Ogudu GRA, disbursed cheques worth N1m to beneficiaries of the club’s micro credit scheme.

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Members of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, Oyo State branch, have warned that unless the Federal Government lowers the exchange rate for the importation of drugs into the country, the cost of the drugs may go beyond the purchasing power of common Nigerians who are in need of the drugs.

Chairman of the association, Adeyinka Isola, who spoke in Ibadan during the celebration of this year’s edition of the Pharmacists’ Week, said the association at the national level had met with the FG over the high cost of drugs, adding that it had yet to receive a response in the regard.

As part of the celebration, Isola said that drugs would be donated to orphanage homes in Ibadan. He said, “The safety of lives must come first in any government policy. When we cannot take good care of the sick, there is a problem. We are meeting with the government over the issue of exchange rate and we are hopeful that a concession will be granted to us so that those who import these drugs will be able to bring them into the country at reduced costs.

“We plead with the FG to lower the exchange rate for these importers in order to provide succour for those who are sick, especially in this time of recession. Many of these drugs are out of stock already and importers are finding it difficult to bring them to Nigeria. The health care of our teeming populace is very important.”

Isola also raised the alarm over a new trend in the state that has made drug stores the targets of armed robbers.

On Saturday, for instance, a pharmacist was shot by suspected robbers at his store in the Challenge area of Ibadan, injuring him and leaving with an unspecified amount of money and several prescription drugs. The incident was one of the several attacks on drug stores in the city in the past two months.

Isola warned that many of the drugs carted away during these attacks could be injurious to users.

He said, “There have been robbery attacks on pharmaceutical companies and stores in the state. We are part of the society and we are not immune to the situation that the country is facing. Those who are doing this are simply undoing themselves because they are stealing drugs that have been purchased for certain purposes, which they may not know.

“Drugs are not articles of trade but professional entities. Robbery attacks on drug stores are new, which shows how serious the situation is in the country. Effort is being made by the Pharmaceutical Council of Nigeria, Oyo State branch, to deal with the situation. But, as an association, we call on the police to help to check this menace by protecting our industry and professionals in it. It is unfortunate that special drugs that could hurt users, who don’t have their prescription, are being stolen.”

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The Federal Government has been urged to deploy modern technology in checking the influx of fake drugs in the country.

A pharmacist and Chief Executive Officer of Vanguard Pharmacy Limited, Mr. Taofik Odukoya, made this call while inaugurating a branch of the company in Abeokuta, capital of Ogun State, last Saturday.

Odukoya appealed to the government to start the enforcement of strict control and regulations of drugs imported into the country.

Also, lamenting the lack of a standard distribution system in the Nigerian drug industry, he said, “There has been a campaign in the last two or three years by the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria against the influx of fake drugs in the country. One of the solutions to this problem is by deploying modern technology.

“The only way we can track the distribution of fake drug in the country is through the use of technology. We do not have a standard distribution channel of drugs.

“But, if we can establish a good drugs distribution channel, it will make life easy in a sense that every drug coming in to the country will be monitored down to the last line. Through this you can recall drugs even when they are not fake.”

Odukoya noted that fake drugs found their way into the country in the past through negligence by some unscrupulous law enforcement agents who compromised their lawful responsibilities.

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The federal government at the weekend said it was already rolling out plans to eradicate Wild Polio Virus (WPV) from Nigeria once and for all.

While addressing a Press Conference to update the media on the government’s response to the recent Polio outbreak in the Northeast, the Acting Executive Director of National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr. Emmanuel Odu said the bulk of the fund needed for the intervention has been released.

He said the government budgeted and released a total of N9.8 billion for Polio eradication and immunization this year.

It would be recalled that after being free from Polio for two years, Nigeria recorded three new cases of the virus between July and August this year in Borno State.

But Dr. Odu said: “In the immediate response Mop-up targeting 5 local government areas, 820, 000 eligible children were vaccinated.”

He added that the first round, involving five contiguous and very high risk states, achieved the vaccination of 5.9 million eligible children.

Dr. Odu also said response campaign was implemented in 18 States in the Northern Nigeria including the FCT in the second outbreak response strategy.

“This round targets 31.54 million eligible children for which a total of 38.4 million doses of Polio Vaccines were deployed to the states”, he said.

According to him, 28,757,161 children under the age of five years were vaccinated in the exercise which took place between 17-20 September, 2016.

He said apart from efforts being made by Nigeria, all other members of the Lake Chad Basin involving; Chad, Niger, Cameroon and Central Africa Republic were also carrying out a synchronized implementation of Polio campaigns in response to the Nigeria outbreak.

The third outbreak response, fourth and fifth Immunization Responses will take place on 15-18 October, 29 October- 01November and 19-22 November respectively.

While expressing optimism that when fully implemented, the campaign will finally eradicate the Polio Virus in the country, Dr. Odu said there were still some areas not accessible in the Northeast.