Nollywood actress and filmmaker, Mary Remmy Njoku, has cried out over what she described as the alarming ineffectiveness of some drugs sold in Nigeria.
She made the complaint in an Instagram post on Tuesday, calling on the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) to urgently investigate the quality of medications in the country.
Njoku narrated how she suffered food poisoning on a movie set and bought Imodium, a common medication for diarrhoea, from what she called “one of the biggest pharmacy chains in Nigeria.”
According to her, the medicine failed to work after three days of consistent use.
“Let me share a recent experience: I had a bit of food poisoning on a set. Sent a staff to buy Imodium from the arguably one of the biggest pharmacy chains in Nigeria. A medication I’ve used many times before. I took it for three days straight, and nothing changed. The symptoms didn’t stop,” she wrote.
She added that her husband returned from a trip abroad with the same drug and gave her just one tablet from the foreign batch. “it worked within five minutes, ” she stated.
Expressing concern, the ROK Studios boss questioned the safety of locally sold medicines.
“This isn’t my first time noticing this kind of difference in both locally and imported drugs sold in Nigeria. So I have to ask: What exactly are we being sold in Nigeria? What’s going on with our drugs? This is a public health risk and NAFDAC must take it seriously. This is dangerous!” she added.
She ended her post with a direct appeal to NAFDAC, saying, “NAFDAC HELP.”
As of press time, the drug agency had not responded to the post.
