Tag Archives: drugs

Porto-Novo, Benin | AFP | A court in Benin on Thursday sentenced opposition politician Sebastien Ajavon to 20 years in prison on drugs charges and issued an international warrant for his arrest. The former presidential candidate was not at the hearing in the West African country’s administrative capital, Porto-Novo, which …

Manila, Philippines | AFP | With Canada on the verge of becoming the world’s second nation to legalise recreational marijuana, the head of the World Health Organization said Wednesday that countries should think twice before opening that door. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who was in the Philippines for a regional …

Abidjan, Ivory Coast | AFP | Nearly 400 tonnes of fake medicines have been seized over two years in Ivory Coast, whose main city Abidjan is a West African haven for counterfeit drugs, the health ministry said Tuesday. Counterfeit medicine is the scourge of Africa and the cause of around …

Abuja, Nigeria | AFP | Nigeria has banned cough syrups containing the painkiller codeine because of concern about misuse and addiction, the government said. Health Minister Isaac Adewole said the ban was introduced because of “the gross abuse codeine usage has been subjected to in the country”. The announcement late …

Harare, Zimbabwe | AFP | Zimbabwe has legalised production of cannabis for medicinal or scientific use, according to new regulations seen by AFP Saturday. A statutory instrument entitled Production of Cannabis for Medicinal and Scientific Use Regulations, said prospective producers can apply to the health ministry for a licence to …

United Nations, United States | AFP | Delivering a swansong address to the United Nations, Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos called Tuesday for a shift in the global approach to drug trafficking, which he described as the main threat to peace. Santos, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating an …

`Systematic drug repositioning’ seeks to make drugs developed for one illness capable of treating another COMMENT | ARIS PERSIDIS & ANDREAS PERSIDIS | Producing effective medicines requires huge investments of time and money. The average drug on the market today spent a decade in the lab and in clinical trials, and cost …

Mexico City, Mexico | AFP | Some 7,667 people were killed in Mexico in the first quarter of 2018, up 20 percent on the same period last year, making it the most violent year in two decades, government figures showed Sunday. In 2017, the figure stood at 6,406 violent deaths, …

Washington, United States | AFP | Global consumption of antibiotics has soared since the year 2000, stoking calls for new policies to rein in usage — and fueling fears that the worldwide threat posed by drug-resistant superbugs will spiral out of control, researchers say. A study in the Proceedings of …

National Drug Authority should handle the issue of counterfeit drugs through monitoring systems and the law COMMENT | MICHAEL WOIRA | The Uganda National Drug Authority and the Ministry of Health need to urgently reexamine the systems and processes they use to examine all drugs that are being sold by public …