The Director General of the National Agency for Food Drugs Administration and Control, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, has warned against the negative effect of the high level of fake, substandard and falsified drugs in Nigeria.
Adeyeye gave the warning of the act on Thursday at a one-day sensitisation campaign programme, held at Ibadan Business School in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.
The DG who was represented by the Zonal Director of the agency, Roselyn Ajayi, warned that fake and substandard products could negatively impact users due to the effect of the drugs on their bodies.
She said one of the strategies the agency intended to use to curb the menace was to embark on aggressive sensitisation and engagement of different stakeholders, particularly those in the distribution of healthcare products like medicine.
“Our survey has shown that the level of prevalence of substandard and falsified products is high across the nation.
“The outcome of such survey necessitated the need for sensitisation and engagement of the healthcare providers to interact on how the prevalence of substandard and falsified medicine can be reduced.
“From the experiences and survey report, it was observed that fakers and counterfeiters are getting smarter and faster, taking advantage of the possibilities and opportunities of advancement in technology, hence the sensitisation and campaign programme, she said.
She added that participants have been shown “what we have discovered on the field. We want them to know the concerns of NAFDAC, and we also want to know their concerns, so as to know the way forward.
“This sensitisation is not ending here, we are still going to pay advocacy visits to churches, mosques, traditional rulers and opinion leaders on how to avoid patronizing people selling substandard, unwholesome and fake products.
“This is just the first phase, and we have brought in pharmacists that are involved in the distribution of medicine to enlighten them on what to look out for, concern of NAFDAC, what is their own concern and also how we can put these incidences to the bearest minimum?”
In his remark, the chairman of the Oyo State Association of Community Pharmacists of Nigeria, Adebayo Gbadamosi, appealed to Nigerians to always patronise registered pharmacists, not quacks to buy original drugs.
“Some of these drugs also have scratches. You can scratch to know the authenticity of the drugs. If our people are informed and they stop buying fake drugs, it will discourage the quacks,” he explained.