Nigeria Has Begun Local Production of Drug Ingredients To Combat Substandard Medicines, NAFDAC Says

In a bid to encourage local manufacturing of medicine, National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) said the country had started local production of active ingredients needed for the manufacture of drugs.

NAFDAC said the push for local manufacture of medical products will help check the dumping of substandard medicine in the country.

Quoting statistics by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the agency said 10 per cent of medicines sold in the middle and low-income countries were either fake or substandard.

Speaking during a sensitisation and awareness campaign on substandard and falsified medical products, held in Abuja on Monday, Director of Post Market Surveillance Directorate, Mr. Bitrus Fraden, said the country was making gradual progress in its desire to promote local manufacturing of medicines.

Fraden said, “Our effort at promoting local manufacturing of medical products are yielding fruits. We are beginning to produce what we call active pharmaceutical ingredients, here in Nigeria, what we need to be able to promote local manufacturing of medicines.”

He said the possibility of manufacturing medicine locally was an exciting development to NAFDAC because of the advantages.

“Apart from reduction in cost of pharmaceutical products, the agency will find it easier to monitor and regulate the products,” he said.

Fraden said the focus of the meeting with the stakeholders was on how to avoid sale and consumption of falsified and substandard medical products.

He told the community medicine vendors to ensure that they were their brothers’ keeper by not allowing falsified or substandard medical products to be sold to the people.

He said the event was specifically meant to sensitise patent medicine vendors in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on the health dangers of substandard medicines and how to avoid getting them.

According to Fraden, the programme is part of the agency’s effort to achieve its mandate of helping to safeguard the health of Nigerians through ensuring that only quality and standard medicines are administered to them.

In the presentation by the Post Market Surveillance Directorate at NAFDAC, the agency said drugs that were not properly labelled with adequate specifications should be avoided.

He said if all those engaged in the sale and distribution of medical products will ensure due diligence in screening of products, falsified and substandard medicine will be drastically reduced.

He told the distributors to stop the sale of medicines to hawkers, saying the practice can lead to damage to the product and endanger people’s lives.

He also frowned on the rampant sale of sex enhancement herbal medicines, which he said made the situation of the affected individuals worst after consumption

President of the Abuja chapter of Nigeria Association of Patent and Proprietary Medicine Dealers (NAPPMED), Mr. Theophilus Odoh, said the organisation was giving a firm commitment that its members were going to work towards eradicating falsified and substandard medical products in the market.

Onyebuchi Ezigbo

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