The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) says it will implement the ‘pharmaceutical traceability strategy’ to check menace of substandard and falsified medicines.
Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, NAFDAC’s Director-General, said this at the just concluded traceability workshop in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
The workshop, according to a statement by its Resident Media Consultant in Lagos, organised by NAFDAC.
It was organised to finalise the draft regulations on the traceability of pharmaceutical products.
The statement quoted Adeyeye as saying that there are daunti ng challenges in safeguarding the health of the nation.
Such challenges, she said, are capped by the chaotic drug distribution system in Nigeria.
She said that the falsification and diversion of health commodities carried very serious health and economic consequences.
Adeyeye said that the consideration of these consequences motivated the Agency to implement pharmaceutical traceability.
This is to complement its fight against the menace of substandard medicines and improve regulatory control of medicines supply chain.
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She added that this gores together with the mandate of the Agency to regulate and control the distribution of drugs and other regulated products.
Adeyeye said that NAFDAC had developed a five-Year traceability Implementation plan.
This, she said, is in line with the objectives of the Nigeria Pharmaceutical Traceability Strategy to achieve supply chain visibility.
It will also strengthen interventions against the scourge of substandard and falsified medicines by the end of her second term.
The director-general said that the development, gazetting and dissemination of traceability of pharmaceutical products regulations were essential for the adoption and enforcement of the provisions of the strategy.
According to the NAFDAC boss, the regulation, accompanied by guidelines, could fight the menace of substandard and falsified medicines.
It can also improve the regulatory control of the medicines supply chain in Nigeria.
She said that the regulation would provide a legal framework to support advocacy for all stakeholders to implement traceability in distribution of pharmaceuticals or supply chains.
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