Abul Manyuon Mayen, a practicing pharmacist specializing in medication usage and administration in Australia, shared her insights with Eye Radio on October 7, 2024. Photo credit: Moses Awan/Eye Radio.

A pharmacist has cautioned the public against consuming medicines without proper guidance, saying one risks complications such as liver failure.

Abul Manyuon Mayen, a practising pharmacist who returned from Australia two months ago, warns that excessive consumption of Panadol can lead to liver failure.

She further advised against self-diagnosis where individuals share medications or buy drugs without professional help from doctors.

Abul said this could cause potential harm to their bodies, leading to immediate or long-term effects on their health.

“Customers need to be cautious on how we consume medications,” said Abul Manyuon told Eye Radio in an exclusive interview.

“Something as simple as Panadol can cause liver failure if it’s taken in huge amounts. So really just take caution every time you pick up a drug or pick up a medication. It’s a potential harm that you can cause to your body,” she said.

“Some that you can see immediately, some that you cannot see, and in a long time can sort of catch up with you.  So how we consume medication in this country, we need to be careful,” she said.

“We need to be careful what we consume.  We also need to be not sharing medications.  I would recommend that we don’t share medication,” she added.

I would also recommend strongly that we don’t self-diagnose, and that we actually seek professional help by going to the doctor and then going to the pharmacist to get the right medication.

“I would recommend that our health is individual responsibility, and we need to empower patients to be responsible for their health.”

The pharmacist went on to call on her fellow professionals to ensure they store medications at the required temperature for effective treatment of patients.

Abul urged pharmacists to provide safe, effective, and quality medications to patients.

“So when the drugs are manufactured and they are accurate medication, the right medication, they’re not counterfeit and they are delivered to you and you kept them at a temperature that you shouldn’t be keeping them,” Abul said.

“What that does is destabilize the medication and there’s a very good chance that the medication you’re giving might not be active anymore. It will still be there,” she said.

“When you hand it out to the patient it might not be effective but the role of the pharmacist, as I mentioned before, is to make sure that you provide safe, effective and quality medication,” she added.

“So, temperatures in South Sudan generally the weather is a bit hostile, and the temperatures are a bit higher than 24 degrees.

“So, it’s the role of a pharmacist to guide the medication to ensure that storage is really important even when you get an effective medication.

“If you don’t store it well it might destabilize the medication and might just be giving a medication that is not going to help or not effective to the patient.”