NAFDAC confiscates N5b fake drugs in 2 months

The Director General of National Agency for Food and Drug Administrat ion and Control (NAFDAC), Dr Paul Orhii has disclosed that the agency had confis­cated drugs worth more than N5 billion in the last two months.

Orhii, made the disclosure in Akure yesterday at the 37th International Confernce and Annual General Meeting of the association of General and Private Medical Practitio­ners of Nigeria (AGPMPN) where he was honoured with an excellence award for effec­tively tackling the fake drugs scourge and also placing Ni­geria on the global map as a country producing very reli­able drugs fit for both export and local use.

He said that the confiscated drugs, including 244 contain­ers of viagra products which could cause instant heart at­tack, were waiting to be de­stroyed in the agency’s labo­ratory in Oshodi, Lagos.

The NAFDAC boss, who sounded a note of warning to people dealing in the ille­gal business, pledged that the agency would not relent in its fight against “these enemies of the society”.

He said, however, that the introduction of cutting-edge technology in combating sharp practices in the health care industry had drastically reduced the influx of coun­terfeit and fake drugs in the country arguing that NAF­DAC had, in recent years, taken its campaigns against counterfeit drugs to the inter­national arena and employed technologies locally in fight­ing the battle.

“We are the first regulatory agency in the world to em­ploy the use of TRUSCAN (a hand held device) which, within one minute, detects the genuineness or otherwise of a medicine. This has signifi­cantly boosted our capacity for post marketing surveil­lance, “ he said.

He added that the introduc­tion of Mobile Authentication Service (MAS) had provided a unique and secure authenti­cation platform for medicines.

According to him, MAS has put the detection of coun­terfeit medicines in the hands of over 100 million mobile phone users in the country.

The award recipient ex­plained that all anti-malaria and antibiotics sold in the country now have unique PIN numbers which are revealed when the MAS panels are scratched.

In his goodwill message, the governor of Ondo state, Dr.Olusegun Mimiko called on members of AGPMPN to col­laborate with the state govern­ment in the provision of mater­nal and child health services.

According to Mimiko, who was represented by his Chief of Staff, Dr Kola Ademujimi this would reduce maternal and child mortality to the bar­est minimum.