The Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Prof Mojisola Adeyeye, has said that more than 50% of certificates of pharmaceutical products imported into Nigeria are fake.
Speaking at a stakeholders’ engagement meeting in Abuja on Monday, Adeyeye said that the prevalence of substandard and falsified medicines in Africa is a major threat to public health.
She stated that the engagement meeting aimed to ensure that such products in circulation were of the right quality, safe, and efficacious.
Adeyeye mentioned that NAFDAC had blacklisted many companies and imposed sanctions to address the issue.
The certificates of pharmaceutical products are issued in the format recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) and are meant to establish the status of the pharmaceutical product and the applicant in the exporting country.
According to Adeyeye, there are issues with the WHO certification system, which is meant to ensure the quality of medical supplies.
She added that more than 50% of certificates entering Nigeria have been found to be fake.
Only about 10% of national regulatory agencies in the region had reached maturity level three, according to Adeyeye, who blamed the high rate of substandard and falsified medicines in Africa on inadequate regulatory processes.
“Only about 10 per cent of national regulatory agencies have attained maturity level three. What leads to maturity level three is market control, and that is one of the nine models of maturity level three, so we have a lot of work to do in Africa.
“The NAFDAC’s mandate puts a burden on us to see a reduction in substandard and falsified medicines, both the ones that are locally manufactured and the ones that are imported,” she said.
