In this interview on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, the Director General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Prof Mojisola Adeyeye, decries the spate of fake drugs in Nigeria and the agency’s efforts in tackling the menace.

Excerpts:

We’ve seen clampdown operations across the country. Is it deliberate?

Mitigation of substandard falsified medicines is in our national action plan. It is part and parcel of what we do every day to ensure that our citizens are safe. It’s part of our safeguard. However, we started seeing an upsurge of big volumes of expired drugs, and substandard falsified medicines, especially for children. And that is part of why we do what we do. However, we started this from the outset. In my first speech, the resumption speech, I mentioned that we’re going to ensure that we eliminate substandard falsified medicines in Nigeria.

When I joined NAFDAC, from our national survey, it is about 13% average. And this is because people deliberately falsify medicines and some get through the port and the borders. We just say enough is enough. It is also part of our global benchmark, it is part of our market control. We have to control our market so that the drugs that our citizens are using are drugs that will make them feel well, not drugs that will kill them.

Some reports indicate that over 70% of drugs sold in some parts of Nigeria are counterfeit. Can you provide an overview of the current landscape of fake drugs in the country?

The 70% prevalence is not right, it is not accurate. Some people are misusing these data. What we found out about oxytocin predates me. This was before I joined NAFDAC. Oxytocin is a medicine that is used when a woman is induced during labour to make sure that the woman delivers safely. NAFDAC found out at that time that 70% of oxytocin, not all drugs, 70% were substandard. And why so? Because oxytocin is susceptible to temperature, and humidity. The storage condition was not optimal. Therefore, NAFDAC started training healthcare givers on how to store oxytocin to maintain the cold chain. So it is oxytocin, it is not all drugs. People have used that 70% so carelessly.

I’m happy that you’re able to clarify and that’s why I pushed you to it, because if 70% of drugs in some part of the country are counterfeit, we are in danger. Where are these drugs coming from?

Most of the drugs are being brought into the country. And that is part of the reason we started 5 + 5. It ensures we have local content, that our local manufacturers are capacitated to manufacture within. Are we going to manufacture everything locally? No.

Before my time, we were importing 70%. The pandemic taught us a lesson. Now we are importing about 60%. So a lot of the falsified medicines are being brought in from outside the country. For Nigerian manufacturers, we will stay on their case. If we get wind the manufacturer’s product is not good, we will shut the company down within two hours. We will make sure that they correct whatever needs to be corrected. If they cannot correct it, we shut them down completely. We have shut some companies down permanently. We have shut companies down for four months, and five months, and when it hurts the pocket, it’s a deterrent. For our local manufacturers, the quality is getting better, but most of the ones that are coming in, or most of the substandard falsified medicines are coming in. The volume is huge.

The ones that we have seen in the Aba Osisioma area, the ones that we have seen in Onitsha, are not local manufacturers, they have been brought in through porous borders and ports.

From your findings, which of these drugs are more likely to be fake in the market?

I was at Idumota last week and I told them that we are doing this for public health, we are doing it for trade, and we are doing it for the image of this country. Public health, trade, and our image to the world. Public health is obvious. For trade, some of our manufacturers’ products are counterfeited. So the person who sells something for N13,000 will see a counterfeiter selling it for N3,000. We found that out in Kano last year. So we are trying to protect trade. There are some counterfeiters in Nigeria too, but most of the counterfeiters are people bringing substandard specified medicines from outside the country.

Some drugs are illegal or banned, and there are counterfeits. Are you worried about those who are bringing banned or counterfeited drugs into the country?

It Is a worry for NAFDAC because they cannot jump into the country. They come through the ports and borders. That is part of the reason for NAFDAC needs more staff members. We need people to man the borders. Some borders are not manned because we don’t have enough staff members. We need a lot of funding because you cannot take Okada to start going from place to place looking for companies are looking for shops that have illegal products. To address this, the government needs to provide NAFDAC with a lot of support. We don’t bring in only food and drugs, please. We bring in chemicals, chemicals that can be used to make bombs. The National Security Adviser has joined us 100% in these special operations that we’re doing. We have 900 forces working with us now in the three cities – Idumota, Aba and Onitsha. 900 soldiers, policemen, and DSS working with us day and night.

Which of these drugs is more popular to be counterfeited and do we need to cross-check?

Anti-malaria, anti-biotics and children’s medicines. That is also part of the reason we have declared this year the maternal, newborn, child health and nutrition year. Anti-malaria, antibiotics, and oxytocin-like medicines for women.

How do I recognise a counterfeit medication when I get to the pharmacy?

First, you go to a reputable pharmacy. That has the sign, the RX sign on their on their front door. Don’t go to a corner drugstore because it may be cheaper, it may not be advisable. Therefore, you visit a pharmacy where you can obtain receipts and request one. If it doesn’t work, report to NAFDAC. We have gotten intelligence through that. Report to NAFDAC. With the receipt, we will track where it was bought, from where it was brought, we will track from where it was distributed. It ensures that our personnel are adequately informed about the appropriate actions to take and how to distinguish between reputable and unreliable outlets

What is your reaction to those resisting NAFDAC’s operations in markets and other places?

I expect resistance first because people who want to sell are legitimate distributors in different areas, and this may cause them restlessness. They may become fidgety. But we are doing this for the good of our people. This is the first time in the history of Nigeria that we’re going to do this at this scale. We are doing it for them, for me, for all of us, because even those people that are sellers, open marketers, they have relatives that may use bad medicine and die. So we are doing this to control the distribution of medicines.

When are you opening up the sealed markets and what is your strategic plan to make sure that you rid this market of fake drugs?

For Idumota, we hope to finish the operation within a week. For Onitsha and Aba, we are extending it further because it is a huge operation. We’re going to make sure that our sister agency, the Pharmacy Council of Nigeria, that is in charge of licensing where drugs are sold, that is in charge of licensing the practitioner or the seller, we’re going to work with them so that distributors will be given license.

Some say, ‘If you go to go to Ethiopia, for example, there are medications you cannot buy over the counter.’

You’re right.

In Nigeria, you can buy nearly any medication over the counter.

That’s right.

And it’s dangerous, isn’t it?

Unfortunately, we brought this on ourselves as a country. We brought this on ourselves because the Pharmacy Council of Nigeria is supposed to be in charge of site licensing and practitioner licensing. However, we made it open for everybody. So we have millions of patent medicine dealers right now. When I came back to the country in 2017, I said, “When did this madness start?” Because I left the country 37 years before, it was not like that. What the patent medicine dealers did was to take the Pharmacy Council of Nigeria to court for 10 years. That was what festered the whole thing, that was what precipitated what we are seeing right now. So for 10 years, they could not do anything until February of last year.

I think that we need to declare a state of emergency on our borders about drugs and in these markets where they are selling these counterfeit drugs. Are we at risk in this country over genetically modified food? Are they dangerous to our health?

Well, we work with a sister agency that is in charge of genetically modified food or bio-foods, things like that. We are working with them to ensure that whatever they declare unfit, we will declare unfit. We are signing an MoU, working as a committee to ensure that GMO foods that they declare as unsafe, we will not register. We have so many foods now that we don’t even know which one is GMO or not, but it has to be labelled. If it is labelled on the packaging, we will be careful, we will refer that to our sister agency. So in terms of GMO, it is our sister agency that is usually in charge of that. (Channels TV)