By Sulaiman AbduLLAH
Kaduna (Flowerbudnews): The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has embarked on enforcement operations in Kaduna and Zaria Local Government Areas of Kaduna State to further safeguard public health.
The NAFDAC Enforcement operations, which was personally led by the Director, North West Zone (NWZ), Mrs Josephine Dayilim saw NAFDAC operatives clamping down on bakeries with poor hygenic practices and usage of banned substances in bread production.
The NAFDAC North West Zonal operation also resulted in the mopping up expired and unregistered drugs in patent medicine stores and supermarkets.
Flowerbudnews reports that during the operations, bakeries were also shut down for producing under Poor Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP), poor Good Hygienic Practice ( GHP) and using banned casinogenic substance – potassium bromate.
Mrs Dayilim said that the NAFDAC North West Zonal Office enforcement operation was particularly targeted at sellers of counterfeit, Falsified, spurious, fake, and expired drugs in patent medicine stores.
Others targets included unregistered and expired supermarket products, illegal bakeries and poorly stored Yoghurt products.
Flowerbudnews reports that during the sustained routine and surveillance activities carried out at different times, some illegal outfits were caught producing the violating products in Zaria and kaduna metropolis.
They were caught producing without NAFDAC’s marketing authorization and under poor Good manufacturing Practice (GMP), Poor Good Storage Practices ( GSP) and poor Good Hygienic Practice (GHP).
Mrs. Dayilim said that ”these illegal and dangerous practices could pose serious health risks to the unsuspecting members of the general public’:.
The Director and a team of regulatory officers from the North West Zonal office, placed “on hold” some of the illegal outfits’ production lines and mopped up expired drugs, food and cosmetic products in Zaria and kaduna LGA of Kaduna State, during the surveillance activities.
Flowerbudnews reports that the unregistered, fake, counterfeit and expired supermarket food and cosmetic products found in the premises were mopped up for destruction.
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Mrs Dayilim disclosed that the offenders would pay the imposed stipulated investigative charges ”to serve as a deterrent to others who might want to imitate them.”
The Zonal Director commended NAFDAC Director General, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye for motivating and inspiring hard work among the Agency’s workers in the zone.
Mrs. Dayilim disclosed that Prof. Adeyeye and her Management team ”is working hard to ensure that stakeholders are doing businesses without compromising standards and violating the laws to ensure the production of safe, quality and wholesome products’:.
During the enforcement exercises, two illegal bakeries producing bread with potassium bromate and a yoghurt producing facility had their production lines placed on hold, She disclosed.
Several unregistered and expired food and cosmetic products were mopped up from six supermarkets, and fake, expired, falsified and spurious drugs fom Four patent medicine stores.
” For the different violations, different investigative charges were imposed on the defaulters accordingly, to serve as deterrent to others,” Mrs Dayilim stated.
The NAFDAC Zonal Director warned persons involved in peddling of unwholesome products to desist from such dangerous acts, warning that ”anyone caught breaking the laws of the Agency will be sanctioned appropriately”.
She assured that NAFDAC remained unrelenting towards achieving its mandate of safeguarding public health.
She further advised the general public against patronizing unregistered and expired NAFDAC regulated products because of the potential health risks they pose to the public health
Such dangers she stated, included kidney failure and loss of hearing etc for bread produced with potassium bromate, while microbiologically contaminated drinking water and yoghurt could transmit diseases as diarrhoea, cholera, dysentery, typhoid, cancer after prolonged exposure to toxins and could even lead to death, Mrs Dayilim said.
She advised Nigerians to always check for NAFDAC Registration number, Batch no., MFD, BB date, storage condition, direction for use and other prepackaged food labelling requirements before purchasing the products.(Flowerbudnews)
