By Biola Lawal
Abuja (Flowerbudnews): NÀFDAC’s Pre-Shipment Inspection Initiative has Yielded positive Result with about 50 per cent of pharmaceutical products destined for Nigeria found to be fake and successfully Blocked from being Shipped to Nigeria.
Flowerbudnews reports that NAFDAC Director General, Prof Mojisola Adeyeye stated the good news while giving clarification on misquotation by a section of the media, reporting erroneous news about the quality of drugs entering the country.
Prof Adeyeye recalled that NAFDAC set up the Pre-shipment Inspection Scheme, also called the Clean Report of Inspection and Analysis (CRIA) Scheme, to support and strengthen the Agency’s efforts to prevent export of substandard, fake, and falsified pharmaceutical products into Nigeria from high-risk countries.
”’The CRIA scheme has led to the stoppage of the export of over 140 products to Nigeria after laboratory evaluation of those products revealed that they were substandard and did not meet quality and safety standards, ” the NAFDAC Boss stated.
She explained that one of the required documents normally submitted for processing of the CRIA Reports is the Certificate of Pharmaceutical Products (CPP).
”The CPP is a reliance document issued by a National Regulatory Authority to a receiving country which guarantees that a medical product for export meets quality, safety, and efficacy requirements and that the production process conforms to Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) as internationally accepted,” Prof. Adeyeye said .
The Director General explained that NAFDAC found out that 50% of the CPPs submitted by Manufacturers for the failed products were found to be fake and did not follow regulatory requirements for issuance.
Prof. stated that all the products found to have failed laboratory evaluation were blocked from being not shipped into Nigeria, and were not shipped into Nigeria.
It is incorrect and a misplacement of facts to misreport the good news that 50% of drugs set for shipping to Nigeria were efficiently checked by NAFDAC CRIA Agents, found to be falsified and prevented from being shipped to Nigeria, Prof Adeyeye reiterated.
It is also important to clarify that the level of substandard, fake, and falsified pharmaceutical products in Nigeria stood at between 10-12% and NAFDAC is making every possible effort to reduce this to around five per cent.
As a stable maturity level 3 regulatory Agency, NAFDAC has gained international recognition for her efforts at curbing the influx of substandard, fake, and falsified pharmaceutical products through the CRIA scheme and the interception of several consignments of such products, she stated.
”This has led to other countries within Sub-Saharan Africa understudying NAFDAC and embracing the Pre-Shipment Inspection and Analysis Scheme for medical products exported to their countries,” the NAFDAC Boss noted.
Prof Adeyeye assured that ”NAFDAC will continue to deploy various methods to ensure that only quality, safe and efficacious medicines are available for distribution, sale and use within Nigeria”. (Flowerbudnews)
