By Collins Edomaruse, 06.03.2005

The drugs were banned early this week by the agency and marketers and users across the country given six months grace within which they were expected to have disposed off the remnants of the product in their possession.
Director-General of the agency, Dr. Dora Akunyili, who made the plea during an exclusive interview with THISDAY, said the action was necessary because of the "serious" dangers the drugs were posing to the health of millions of Nigerians.
She said following tips on the dangers of the drugs from the public and the result of the laboratory test carried out on same by the agency, it became imperative that drastic action had to be taken to stem the negative activities of manufacturers of such killer drugs.
Justifying the agency's action, Akunyili said: "We are aware that many countries, including Canada, Germany, United Kingdom, United States and Sweden, have banned of restricted the use of dipyrone or novalgin ether in combination with the other drugs or as a single substance due to adverse drug reactions.
"In Sweden," she said, the drug was withdrawn in 1074 and re-licensed in 1996 for short term use in acute pain of moderate to severe intensity and restricted to hospital use only.
"Dipyrone and all its brands is restricted to postoperative pain, colic pain, cancer, pain and migraine in Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, South Africa, Russia, Israel and India."
Citing an instance of a discovered health threat the banned drugs have posed to users, Akunyili said: "On November 24 last year, 14 students of the Federal Government College, Ibusa, Delta State, had injections of dipyrone in their school clinic and two of the students developed severe adverse drug reactions, one of them died after having her skin peeled off in large patches on contact.
"The second student, a 14-year-old suffered severe tissue damage from the upper left buttock to the back knee.
"The safety profile of all the drugs administered on the patients were reviewed and from all indications, dipyrone injection was responsible for the two cases of the adverse drug reactions," she concluded.