The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has entered into partnership with pre-shipment agents in China and India in order to eliminate substandard, spurious and fake medicines.
The Director-General of NAFDAC, Prof. Christiana Adeyeye, disclosed this in a statement signed by the Resident Media Consultant to NAFDAC, Sayo Akintola, and made available to journalists, in Abuja.
Nigeria currently imports 70 per cent of the drugs it consumed and manufacture only 30 per cent locally. India and China are among Nigeria’s major sources of drugs.
While stressing that imported drugs used in Nigeria are mostly from China and India, she assured that: ‘’NAFDAC is now going to the source to ensure that we do pre-shipment analysis.”
She stated that she travelled to China and India with a few staff last year to meet the agents that were given the responsibility many years back, adding that the riot act was read to them and they now understood that they are responsible for making sure that the products samples are analyzed by them in their home countries are of quality.
The NAFDAC boss, however, said loopholes were found in the process and NAFDAC was forced to withdraw the approval granted to one of the Clean Report Inspection Agents (CRIA) and several laboratories.
Prof. Adeyeye stated that both NAFDAC and the agents are now on the same page.
The CRIAs, she said, now work closely with the laboratories, insisting that they have to ensure that the laboratories have the equipment and wherewithal to do the analysis.
She explained that NAFDAC now receives CRIA agents’ reports almost on a daily on consignments that are suspect, saving the country the huge impact of being turned into a dumping ground for counterfeit medicines.
Prof. Adeyeye, therefore, warned unscrupulous elements who are in the habit of importing fake and substandard drugs that they would soon meet their waterloo at the ports here in Nigeria where NAFDAC’s Port Inspection directorate officials are working round the clock to intercept illicit consignments.
‘’We wait for them at the port. Many times, we intercept them because the CRIA agents would have told us about those companies that ought to have gone through them for inspection but did not go,” she said.
