The National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control, NAFDAC, has opened up access for those who have violations to come sign their undertakings, saying, "We are waiting for them now to come ".
"We are giving them undertaking because they violated our rules, Good distribution practices, good storage practices, they violated, and they will be sanctioned for that, but we promise not to close them down unless it is a very, very serious violation ".
The DG NAFDAC, Professor Mojisola Adeyeye made the call at a news briefing in Lagos while explaining with dismay how banned coding, tramadol and a killer Tafrodol, imported by an Indian company were discovered and seized and giving an update on the just concluded raids carried out by the agency on Fake and Substandard drugs in the major drug markets in the country.
According to her, "We screened about 10,000 shops in all, 327 in Lagos. 1,289 in Aba and about 6,000 in Onitsha ".
She noted that to check the menace, the Ministry of Health mandated NAFDAC and PCN to ensure that there is a coordinated process centre in Aba, Onitsha, Lagos, and Kano. " The one for Kano has been built, and on February 16th last year, we started forcing them to move because they didn't want to move". Adeyeye
However, "they are in the process of building the one in Lagos. It will take a while. And part of what we did after this enforcement is to give them an undertaking that we cannot close you down unless you have very serious violations. She stated
For Lagos, " it has been a long process. In terms of the special purpose vehicles that work with the government to get to where they are now ".
Because Lagos has the Special Purpose Vehicle already being built, the Pharmaceutical Council of Nigeria, PCN, is working directly with that Special Purpose Vehicle to sign their undertaking.
It has to be sustained. NAFDAC goes after good storage and distribution practices. PCN goes after the site license and practitioner license.
Unlike what we have seen now, "we didn't have time to do enforcement before moving the shops because it was directly a result of a court case that we started moving. " But we have a strong post-marketing surveillance office all over the country, adding that " it was during post-marketing surveillance, that was how we were able to find out that four medicines meant for children have zero content in them.
Professor Mojisola stated that there had been complaints about the length of time given to them, but she emphasized " Yes, we're going to renew every six months So that they know that we're watching them like a hawk".
"Because of us. Because of the medicine we take. We don't want to ruin any trade.
In fact, that's the last thing on our minds. We want to facilitate trade". She revered.
But not at the detriment of the health of our people. For the other, the same thing, there's going to be a Special Purpose Vehicle that will be working with the state government to build. But we cannot close all of them down. "
So that is just the reality of that. The new central, have we arrested others? In fact, I think it was yesterday or two days ago, the second person had been arrested. When you are doing an investigation, you have to use intelligence.- she concluded
For the central drug market, she informed everyone that" they cannot take anything that is not approved, "they will not be allowed to take any medicine there that was not approved, adding that there is nothing wrong with trade, trade fosters, GDP and whatnot.
" We are all for that. But it has to be good medicine that is what is supposed to be done for trading", she insisted
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