Manaouda on sensitization campaign against street medication

By Nambu Bernadette Franka

Cameroon’s minister of public health Manaouda Malachi, has been sensitizing the population and street sellers on the dangers of selling and consuming medication in the streets. He was speaking while he went to meet roadside sellers in the markets of the Yaounde II district on October 11, 2023.

The visit was done in preparation for the commemoration of the African Day Against Fake Drugs celebrated every October 12.

The main aim of the heath boss going into the markets he said, was to raise awareness, “I did not come to carry your goods. I was just coming to talk with you, encourage you to change your profession because our activity is dangerous to the health of the population,” the Minister said.

At the end of the tour, the Manaouda and his delegation were able to find that these sellers of roadside medication go as far as falsifying the expiry dates of products to cut their losses. This can cause diseases like cancer or kidney failure to name but these.

The 2023 report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reveals that the harms caused by drug trafficking and illicit drug economies are contributing to and compounding many of these threats, from instability and violence to environmental devastation. Illicit drug markets they say, continue to expand in terms of harm as well as scope, from the growing cocaine supply and drug sales on social media platforms to the relentless spread of synthetic drugs cheap and easy to manufacture anywhere in the world, and in the case of fentanyl, deadly in the smallest of doses.