Nigeria, alongside 42 other countries are collaborating and sharing best practices to put an end to the reign of falsified and substandard drugs within and outside the borders of the country.
The Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, in her address in Abuja during the African Medicines Quality Forum, said that its aim is to build and strengthen capacity of African countries in medicines quality control and regional post marketing surveillance.
She said: “We want to make sure that Africans get the medicines they deserve and to reduce substandard medicines in African markets. Quality control is the voice of the African Medicine Regulatory Harmonisation and the goals include convergence, driving harmonisation, reliance and sharing of best practices.
“If a country’s regulatory agency is strong, but surrounded by other countries with weak regulatory agencies, that strong regulatory agency is a matter of time, things will start happening. So, we have got to rely on each other to strengthen each other.”
The Director General of the West African Health Organization (WAHO), Prof. Stanley Okolo, explained that the impact of Covid-19 on the world economy and the global supply chain, particularly of pharmaceuticals, confirms the timeliness of the forum and the huge importance of a continental and indeed regional approach to the issue of medicines security and quality.