The pharmacy inspectorate committee set up by the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, Kwara State branch yesterday shut down two patent medicine stores at Gaa Akanbi and Danialu areas of Ilorin, the state capital.

The affected medicine stores include Zayab Patent Medicine Store and Ibukun Olu which were found wanting for violation of rules and regulations and sales of expired drugs respectively.

Speaking with newsmen at the end of an inspection tour, the Director of Pharmacy, Ministry of Health, Pharmacist Risikat Bolanle Lawal explained that the inspection was aimed to sanitize patent stores and to know if they comply with the rules and regulation by not selling ethical drugs.

She explained that patent medicine stores were not authorized to sell prescription drugs, saying most of them were keeping this unauthorized drugs in their shop.

The director explained that some of the patent stores were not registered at the appropriate place which is the State Ministry of Health before they opened their shops.

In her contribution, Pharmacist Abdul explained that the inspection was to sanitize the drug markets especially the patent medicine stores that were selling contrabound drugs like ampiclox, caffeine, tramadol and others.

According to her, most of the patent medicine stores were not properly registered while some were selling expired drugs.

Also, Pharmacist Bakau Alli noted that the inspection made them know that most of the chemists were not licensed to sell drugs.

He however urged the people to always patronize registered pharmacies for their prescription drugs and always check the NAFDAC registration of any product they want to buy.