The Pharmacy Council of Nigeria (PCN) has closed down 19,059 illegal pharmaceutical premises and patent medicine shops across the country from 2018 to date.

The council has also delisted three foreign universities because of students’ poor performance.

PCN Registrar, Babashehu Ahmed, who disclosed this, yesterday, in Abuja said the enforcement team had visited 27,262 facilities across the country and out of the 19,059 shops shut down,1,780 were operating illegally as pharmaceutical premises while 16,502 were patent medicine shops.

He said within the same period, 110 persons were arrested and were at various stages of prosecution.

“The PCN in the last quarter carried out enforcement in Oyo, Ogun and are currently in Kogi State,” he said.

Ahmed also said 57 pharmacies were sealed in Oyo State while 335 patent medicine shops were sealed. Another 25 pharmacies were shut down in Ogun State during the team’s inspection and 317 patent medicine shops closed down.

He said the council was properly positioned to ensure that the minimum benchmark was strictly adhered to, adding that “it is now mandatory for every institution training pharmacists to present to the Registrar the number of new students they bring on board to ensure that universities do not admit more than the number of people they have capacity to train.”

“We have delisted three foreign universities because of the poor performance of students from the universities and also written the affected institutions

Speaking on the Pharmacy Council of Nigeria Establishment Act 2022 Bill recently signed into Law by President Muhammadu Buhari, Chairman of the Governing Council of PCN, Prof. Ahmed Tijjani Mora, noted that the council is dealing with drugs, which is about life and death adding that a manufacturer of of a wrong medication can kill hundreds of people at once.