To ensure product quality and consumer safety, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) said it has procured 43 TruScan hand-held analysers worth $2,451,000 to check the quality and quantity of drugs produced locally and those imported into the country.
The director-general of NAFDAC, Prof. Moji Adeyeye, who disclosed this yesterday in Abuja, said the equipment will help in the fight against fake and substandard drugs in the country.
She said of the 43 equipment, NAFDAC procured 40 and got three through the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (AIDS).
The DG, however, lamented that the agency has a manpower challenge, stating that part of what she is praying to achieve is to increase the staff capacity by 100 percent by the end of 2025, for effective surveillance.
“We are about 2,000 now, I am hoping that by the end of 2025 we will have reached 4,000. Why because that is part of our post marketing surveillance, whether it is legitimate or illegitimate, we need to do post marketing surveillance, we are going to improve on that even with the little numbers we have, we are praying that the government will hear us to provide more funding for staff,” she said.
Disclosing her strategic goals for 2023 – 2028, Adeyeye said one of them is to attain World Health Organisation (WHO) ML4 and World Listed Authority (WLA) Status.
She said the attainment will enable global trade of Nigerian-made pharmaceuticals through collaborative registration with other regulatory agencies.
She said NAFDAC is hoping to attain Vaccine Lot Release ML4 to position Nigeria strategically for vaccine manufacturing.
