Three firms – AMA Medical Manufacturing Company, Echitab Study Group Nigeria and Micropharm Ltd., UK – on Tuesday signed an MOU for the production of Anti-Snake Venom(ASV) drugs in Nigeria.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), reports that the event, held at the AMA medical manufacturing company in Kudenda, Kaduna, signified a huge step in the nation’s efforts to produce the drugs locally.
Over the years, the drugs had been produced in Liverpool, UK, and Costa Rica with Nigeria having to take the live snakes to the producers who would kill them and remove the venoms.
The venoms are, thereafter, used to produce the ASV drugs which are, then taken to Nigeria.
The process has proved very tedious and expensive with the drugs usually very scarce and very expensive when available.
Efforts to get government to establish a firm to produce the drugs had proved fruitless with the victims of snakebite, mostly farmers, herders, hunters and other rural dwellers bearing the scourge that kills thousands every year.
Speaking at the MOU signing ceremony, Prof. Nasidi Abdulsalami, Chairman, AMA medical manufacturing company, said that the Mou was a huge leap that would help the country.
Abdulsalami said that the MOU represented a good initiative for public private partnership “which looks forward to the full participation of the federal and state governments, and other Nigerians”.
“We expect meaningful Nigerians that are blessed to contribute because it is a social investment aimed at saving lives.
“The ASV drugs are life saving products. We can never allow the drugs to vanish because Nigerians need them, especially the farmers and herders.
“The MOU signing today serves as the beginning of self-sufficiency for the product not only in the country, but the entire continent because countries look up to Nigeria for good leadership.
“I am proud to announce that the World Health Organisation has tested all the ASV drugs available in the world and found out that our ASV, for which we are developing this partnership today with micropharm, is the best.
“Micropharm products that are produced in the UK are the best; the second is the one produced by Costa Rica.”
He expressed gratitude for the collaboration, adding that the decades of suffering and helplessness because of the paucity of ASV drugs had come to an end.
“For 22 years, we worked hard to actualise the local production of ASV drugs. That dream has become real today.
“We want to have Echitab drugs available, affordable and sustainable,” he said.
