He spoke yesterday at the presentation ceremony of ISO/IEC 17025:2005 accreditation zonal branch of National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) in Agulu, Anaocha Local Government Area of Anambra State.
The Governor, who was represented by the Deputy Governor, Dr. Nkem Okeke, said that the state government is making efforts to partner with the Federal Ministry of Health to check the influx of fake drugs into the Head Bridge Drug market in the commercial city of Onitsha.
He said: “Sale of fake drug is the worst crime anybody can commit. There is no need jailing such people; they should be shot.”
Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, hailed the zone for attaining such adding that it connotes immortality based on the fact that the laboratory was spear headed by late Professor Dora Akunyili during her time as the Director General of the agency.
He observed that the major problem of Anti-microbial resistance is as a result of the fake drugs consumed by people.
According to the Minister, efforts should be renewed to protect the health of Nigerians.
He said, “When we allow products of poor quality to come into the country, we are injuring our people. I thank NAFDAC for stopping the in surge. It is easier to get accreditation but more difficult to sustain it.
“Because of the porosity of our border, we must have our labs accredited to fight in-surge of fake drugs.”
While advising the staff of the laboratory to sustain the tempo that attracted the accreditation so as to avoid losing it, the Minister urged them to renew the commitment to protect the health of Nigerians.
He also assured drug manufacturers that the government is working to reverse the unfortunate anomaly of tax tariff.
Earlier in her address, the Acting Director-General of NAFDAC, Mrs. Yetunde O. Oni said that the accreditation by the ANSI-ASQ International Accreditation Board (ANAB) is aimed at giving the laboratory the right to undertake multiple pharmaceutical testing methods.
She reeled out the test methods to include High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC), Ultra –Violet/Visible Spectrophotometry, Dissolution Testing, Uniformity of Dosage (weight variation and content uniformity, PH, Loss on Drying) and Karl Fischer (for water determination).
Mrs. Oni explained that the accreditation will enable the laboratory to perform all classes of pharmaceutical products, raw material and excipients. He added that the test methods and protocols are in accordance with international, validated and approved compendia which will hitherto give international acceptance to the test resects on the quality status of analysed regulated products.
Mrs. said that the process for the accreditation started in 2015 with gap assessment of the facilities and personnel by the team of experts from United State Pharmacopia, USP who assisted in the training of personnel on ISO/IEC standard.
According to her, the laboratory was fully built from the scratch by NAFDAC as a capital project unlike the ones in Lagos, Maiduguri and Port Harcourt which were inherited from the parent ministry, the Ministry of Health.
The Acting Director General used the occasion to appeal to the Minister for assistance for the upgrading of the Microbiology laboratories at Oshodi, Maiduguri and Agulu to international standards with the pre-requisite-heating-Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) system.
•Photo shows Dignitaries at yesterday’s presentation ceremony of ISO/IEC 17025:2005 accreditation to NAFDAC zonal branch in Agulu, Anambra State. (Photo: Pamela Eboh)
