The Public Relations Officer of the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA), Mrs Rhoda Appiah, has revealed that FDA does not license any individual to hawk drugs.
According to her, most of the drugs the hawkers sell are also not approved by the FDA, and the intake of those drugs could be harmful to humans.
“When it comes to the hawking of medicines in Ghana, I am not aware of any institutions that provide license for the hawking of drugs in transport terminals or buses or even at homes,” she stated.
She explained that when hawkers are caught violating the laws, “they claim it has been approved by the Centre for Plants and Food Medicines, but still it does not constitute the approval of the FDA”.
She advised the public to look out for English inscriptions on medications to read in order “to know all the important information on the medicine, then you can know whether it has been approved or not.”
Again, he advised the public to “check the batch number of the medicine, and that can let you know if FDA has stamped on it or not to be sure whether the drug has been approved, and check the expiry date on the medicine”.
She spoke in an interview monitored by The Ghana Report on Joy News.
From the observation of drugs sold by peddlers on the streets, it is very common to see people selling sildenafil or aphrodisiac drugs, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, blood pressure, and diabetic drugs that have not been approved by the FDA.
This is why the FDA is cautioning all citizens to avoid purchasing those drugs from hawkers in the market, in vehicles, and even those who bring them to various homes.