General News of Monday, 16 March 2020

Source: Asante Yeboah, Contributor

Coronavirus: Pharmaceutical society of Ghana holds crunch meeting with Akufo-Addo

The Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana The Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana

The Executive Secretary of Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana Mr. Denis Sena Awitty has hinted that a meeting with the President Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo-Addo has become extremely imperative to fashion out measures to provide medical logistics to the public in the wake of Coronavirus pandemic.

According to him, the Society believes the meeting with the President would afford them the opportunity to brainstorm with the stakeholders on the way forward adding that the issue of shortage of hand sanitizers and personal protection gears for health officers’ benefits would come to fore during the meeting.

Mr. Denis Sena Awitty gave the hint during an exclusive interview with Captain Koda on Otec FM’s Nyansapo morning show programme on 16th March 2020, which was monitored by ace journalist Asante-Yeboah Benedict.

Checks from the pharmaceutical outlets and health posts unfounded that prices of sanitisers and other medications for the prevention of the COVID-19 have escalated during the last couple of days due to high demand for the products.

But speaking during the interview, the Executive Secretary of Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana Mr. Denis Sena Awitty insisted that the increase of the product was mainly due to few local Pharmaceutical Companies currently producing the hand sanitizers adding that the meeting intends to take critical look at the situation.

He posited,” the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana would be meeting with the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo today on a number of issues including the shortage of products. We are concerned as a society on the trend of the increase of the COVID-19 related products. The problem is that a few local Pharmaceutical companies which are about three in number are currently producing the products so it is making the products very scarce.”

He, however, pleaded with the members to resist the temptation of taking advantage to cash in by selling the products to the public at an unapproved price adding that the Society would take harsh sanctions against such members who indulge in such acts.