By Gom Mirian
The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has launched a new regulatory surveillance programme in Nigeria.
It is aimed at curbing the sale of substandard and falsified NAFDAC-registered products, the agency stated in a report made available to Africa Health Correspondent on Friday and signed by Pharmacists Bitrus Fraden, Deputy Director in charge of post-market monitoring.
According to Fraden, the new initiative involves several measures designed to increase surveillance and enforcement activities across the country. These measures include increased inspections of warehouses, markets and retail outlets to detect and seize substandard and falsified products; the deployment of mobile testing laboratories to remote areas of the country where testing facilities are limited and closer monitoring of the supply chain to prevent the distribution of adulterated or counterfeit products.
He said that regulatory actions had become necessary to check for conformity with auauthorised oduction criteria, requirements for marketing authorisation holders and other pertinent public health needs.
“To ensure that the quality and integrity of regulated products are maintained and consistent across the legal supply chain ecosystem (the right drugs get to the right patients at the right time and the right condition)…to reduce the proliferation of substandard and falsified regulated products, thereby, promoting health outcomes,” he added.
The launch of the new regulatory surveillance programme came amid growing concerns about the proliferation of substandard and falsified products in Nigeria, particularly in the pharmaceutical and food sectors.
