• Urges safer drug storage, distribution system

The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has inducted 600 pharmacists into its Pharmacists Reserve Volunteer Programme (PRVP) to strengthen the fight against fake and substandard medicines and extend the agency’s regulatory reach at the grassroots level across the country.

The Director-General of NAFDAC, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, who inaugurated the programme and administered the oath of allegiance to the volunteers, said the pharmacists were drawn from the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, representing the country’s six geopolitical zones.

Adeyeye explained that the volunteers, who were already pursuing careers in different fields, were selected through a process that considered merit, availability and geographical representation. She said the programme was not an internship or attachment, but an investment in the country’s regulatory future.

According to her, the pharmacists would be exposed to key areas of medicines regulation, including pharmacovigilance, compliance monitoring, quality assurance, data collection and public sensitisation against drug abuse.

She said the initiative was also designed to create a national reserve of working pharmacists who could be mobilised at short notice to support NAFDAC during product recalls, suspected circulation of falsified medicines or emergencies in hard-to-reach communities.

Adeyeye said her ambition was for every state to have a standing pool of trained, vetted and mobilisable pharmacists who would work alongside NAFDAC state offices, thereby extending regulatory activities beyond laboratories and ports of entry to markets, community pharmacies, patent medicine stores and primary healthcare centres.

IN another development, Adeyeye has called for safer drug storage and distribution practices across Nigeria’s drug markets.

She made the call at the weekend during a stakeholders’ engagement with the Patent Medicine Dealers Association, Ogbete, Enugu.

The engagement was a sensitisation programme on Good Storage and Distribution Practices (GSDP).

Mrs Adeyeye, who was represented by NAFDAC’s South-East zonal Director, Festus Ukadike, said the engagement was to enlighten medicine traders about safer storage practices.

She urged medicine dealers to procure their products only from legitimate manufacturers, importers and authorised distribution channels.

The NAFDAC boss added that the manufacture, importation, distribution and sale of counterfeit or substandard products constituted a grave threat to public health, warning that engaging in the act attracts severe regulatory sanctions.