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Tag: NAFDAC DG

  • NAFDAC DG seeks death penalty for fake drugs dealers

    NAFDAC DG seeks death penalty for fake drugs dealers

    The Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Mojisola Adeyeye is proposing the death penalty for fake drug dealers.

    Adeyeye made this known on Friday while speaking on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief, where she claimed that only strict penalties would deter drug peddlers, especially when their actions result in the deaths of children.

    “Somebody bought children’s medicine for about N13,000, while another person was selling it for around N3,000 in the same mall.

    “That raised an alarm. Guess what? When we tested the medicine in our Kaduna lab, there was nothing inside. So, I want the death penalty.

    “You don’t need to put a gun to a child’s head to kill them. Just give them bad medicine,” Adeyeye said.

    The NAFDAC boss also called for the cooperation of the judiciary and the National Assembly to make the proposal a reality.

    According to her, the agency is open to working with lawmakers and other stakeholders on the matter.

    She said, “You cannot fight substandard and falsified medicines in isolation. The agency can only do so much, but if there is no deterrent, there will be a problem.

    “Someone brought in 225mg of Tramadol, which can kill a person or fry their brain, and the punishment is just five years in prison or a fine of N250,000. Who doesn’t know that a person can simply withdraw N250,000 from an ATM?

    “That is part of our problem — there are no strict measures to stop offenders from repeating the same crime. We can only do so much, but if our laws are not strong enough or the judiciary is not firm in its stance, we will continue to face this challenge.

    “So, our judicial system must be strong enough. We are working with the National Assembly to make our penalties much stiffer. But if you kill a child with bad medicine, you deserve to die.”

  • COVID-19 vaccines produced in Nigeria will meet international standards -NAFDAC DG

    COVID-19 vaccines produced in Nigeria will meet international standards -NAFDAC DG

    The Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, has assured Nigerians that COVID-19 vaccines produced in the country will be of international standard, with the strengthening of the agency.

    Adeyeye gave the assurance during the oversight visit of the House of Representatives Committee on COVID-19 to the NAFDAC facilities and COVID-19 laboratory projects in Lagos.

    According to a statement issued on Sunday by Sayo Akintola, NAFDAC Resident Media Consultant, Adeyeye described the Federal Government’s huge spending on the fight against COVID-19 as exemplified by the construction of the new COVID-19 laboratory, as a great achievement for the country.

    She said that the laboratory with equipped modern instruments and amenities at the agency was a wake-up call for the country.

    She noted with dismay that the health sector had been neglected before the present administration responded through the COVID-19 Committee of the National Assembly, “particularly the members that are here today’’.

    She said: “To ensure that the health sector is strengthened, NAFDAC must be strengthened, if the regulatory agency is not strengthened, the industry will not be strengthened.

    “We have the African Free trade Agreement already here with us now for the nation’s pharmaceutical industry to take advantage of with quality products.

    “There will be a lot of competition and if NAFDAC’s laboratory is not strengthened, we will not be able to compete.

    ‘’For Vaccines, we are hoping that the vaccine facilities from the public-private partnership will soon happen but if the regulatory agency is not strong, we can make vaccine that will destroy our own people.”

    Adeyeye noted that with the agency now very strong with WHO Maturity Level 3 certification, “Nigeria can now make its own vaccines and we can assure the populace that there is quality in whatever is being manufactured because of NAFDAC’s strength”.

    On the impact that COVID-19 fund had made, she said, “this should resonate well with the whole country that if you put the right people in the right places, then the vision of the government can be realised.

    ‘’Whatever approvals that are being given by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) on funding our activities, you can actually touch such and this is what has happened here today.”

    She commended the COVID-19 committee, and the Healthcare Services committee of the Assembly for committing to ensuring that NAFDAC as a regulatory agency is known internationally.

    Speaking, Chairman, House Committee on COVID-19, Haruna Mshelia, commended Adeyeye and her management team for leveraging latest technology to upgrade the agency.

    ‘’We have seen with our eyes how they have leveraged on latest technology to upgrade the organisation to a standard that is next to none in Africa. I think they need to be commended.

    “We have seen the warehouse. We have now seen the laboratory which is under construction. They have gone very far, and the standard of the construction is good.

    ‘’We have also seen the equipment awaiting to be installed in the laboratories. I have to say kudos to the DG and her team for getting good value for money as far as COVID-19 funds for NAFDAC is concerned.

    “Other agencies should come to NAFDAC and learn how they have leveraged ICT to move their organisation forward so that everywhere our standard can be uplifted with everyone seeing it,” Mshelia said.

  • NAFDAC DG reveals her vision for the agency

    NAFDAC DG reveals her vision for the agency

    Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, Prof Mojisola Adeyeye, has said her vision is to take the agency to maturity level four, a global benchmark by the World Health Organisation, WHO.

    In her words: “The next step is maturity level four. We are already working on this. This will bring greater news to the pharmaceutical industry. This will mean that any product approved by NAFDAC in Nigeria can be traded globally. That is where my vision is.”

    Prof. Adeyeye, while speaking in a briefing in Abuja, pointed out that NAFDAC has achieved maturity level three.

    The maturity level three categorisation, apart from assuring Nigerians the drugs approved in the country are of high quality and safe, puts the country in a good place to start manufacturing its own vaccines.

    This makes NAFDAC the third in Africa and among the very few agencies in the world to achieve this global benchmark in terms of quality of medicines, regulatory inspection, laboratory testing, clinical trials, market control etc.

    She said: ”The WHO global benchmarking is all about comparing regulatory agencies with the best in the world. WHO told us we had to meet 868 recommendations before we can get to maturity level three.

    “It sounded impossible, but my Directors stood by me all the way. There is also a group of young people in NAFDAC called the Global Benchmarking Team; they have sacrificed a lot. They marked whichever recommendations we have met.

    “NAFDAC is the third in Africa and only very few in the world (I’m talking of low and middle-income countries). This is a great achievement for NAFDAC.”

  • AstraZeneca vaccine has no side effect –NAFDAC DG

    AstraZeneca vaccine has no side effect –NAFDAC DG

    Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, the Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, has stated that the Astrazeneca vaccine recently inaugurated and distributed to states to treat COVID-19 has no side effect.

    Adeyeye, who stated this on Thursday in Abuja, shortly after she got vaccinated, said that NAFDAC went through the application dossier of the vaccine before it was approved to be administered on Nigerians for the treatment of COVID-19.

    “When we got the dossier or the application package of the vaccine, we went through it line by line, but before we got the application itself, we went through other assessments.

    “I am talking about their assessment report so that we are prepared and guided when we start our own and that was exactly what happened.

    “We conclude based on quality, safety and efficacy because we have to depend on the report, this particular AstraZeneca vaccine, over 20, 000 people were involved in phase three of the report,’’ she said.

    Adeyeye said that the effectiveness of AstraZeneca vaccine outweigh the risk, as it has already been examined.

    She noted that there was no medicine without its side effect, especially when still going through the developmental stage.

    The director-general said that from all indications of quality and efficacy, the benefit of AstraZeneca vaccine outweighs the risk and the side effect.

    She said that the agency also believed in herbal medicine, but it must be backed with research before such could be approved.

    She added that such herbal medicine must be antiviral to cater for various illnesses.

    Adeyeye said that the agency had accommodated 14 of such herbal medicine for listing to ascertain whether it was safe to use it.

    She said that the agency must also do its own clinical trials before any herbal medicine would be approved.

    She disclosed that the Federal Government had arranged for a research and development scheme for the health sector, adding that, a lot of herbal medicine were going to be used for the testing.

    NAN

     

  • How lawmakers threatened to sack me for declining to offer them bribe – NAFDAC DG

    The Director-General of the National Agency for Food, Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Mojisola Adeyeye, has claimed that the House of Representatives committee on healthcare services had demanded a bribe from her.

    Concise News reports that speaking when she was a guest on Sunrise Daily, a Channels TV programme on Friday, Adeyeye said the committee asked her for the bribe in the form of “money for welfare” when they visited her in December 2017.

    The NAFDAC DG said this happened at a time the agency was “bleeding profusely” as a result of lack of fund.

    According to her, “when I came to NAFDAC, there were a lot of things that were wrong. Take oversight function or whatever that is done, I was shocked when I was told to give money, I said money for what? … money to the committee that visited us. The health care services committee of the house of representatives.

    “This was 2017 December, not even a month to my resumption. We don’t have another country, this is Nigeria. I was shocked first because this was the same day I went for a Powerpoint presentation… we don’t have the equipment, about 70 per cent of our equipment need to be upgraded.

    “We don’t have vehicles and you use vehicles to go after the bad guys or to ensure compliance. Our directors didn’t have computers, laptops, it was shortly after that, they then asked me (and said) we need welfare.”

    “I said I cannot. For just the visit? I couldn’t believe my ears because it saddens me. Yes, it can be referred to as them asking for bribe. It saddens me. This is an organisation that was bleeding profusely.”

    Adeyeye added that that day was “the worst day of my professional life” as NAFDAC DG and that her refusal did not go down well with the lawmakers.

    “It wasn’t taken well at all. I was threatened and I couldn’t believe that too, you are threatening me?” she said.

    “Somebody that was acting like this from the US was also out. It saddens me because we don’t have another country.”