The Tuesday, 19th of April, 2016 visit to the National Agency For Food, Drug Administration And Control (NAFDAC) by a team of experts from the World Bank, led by Ambassador David Adejuwon, Nigeria’s envoy to Geneva And representative to the World Trade Organization (WTO), was indeed as historic as it was revealing.
The visit which took the World monetary agency representative to NAFDAC’s headquarters and all its operational formations including Seme border was to commend the good works of the nation’s food and drug regulating agency and seek ways of partnering with it for better empowerment and invigoration to harness the gains and achieve the set goals of the immediate past Director-General, Dr. Paul Botwev Orhii whose contributions to the pharmaceutical world was highly eulogized.
World Bank Commend NAFDAC, seeks Partnership .
The Tuesday, 19th of April, 2016 visit to the National Agency For Food, Drug Administration And Control (NAFDAC) by a team of experts from the World Bank, led by Ambassador David Adejuwon, Nigeria’s envoy to Geneva And representative to the World Trade Organization (WTO), was indeed as historic as it was revealing.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content1'); });
The visit which took the World monetary agency representative to NAFDAC’s headquarters and all its operational formations including Seme border was to commend the good works of the nation’s food and drug regulating agency and seek ways of partnering with it for better empowerment and invigoration to harness the gains and achieve the set goals of the immediate past Director-General, Dr. Paul Botwev Orhii whose contributions to the pharmaceutical world was highly eulogized.
The team to Seme was accompanied by the Deputy Director of NAFDAC, Mrs. Akalusi Doris O. and some NAFDAC’s officials and on ground to receive them, was, the Officer in Charge at the Seme border posts.
The World Bank Team, which emphasized on the need to support NAFDAC’s operations at the premier land border, promised to partner with the agency through supplies of high-technological equipment that will be of immense benefits in its overall duties.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content2'); });
Mrs. Akalusi, on behalf of the agency appreciated the gesture of visitors, and said, it was a moral booster that was coming at the right time.
It would be recalled that Dr. Paul Orhii who was appointed to head the drug and food agency in 2009 was recently relived of his duty by the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration alongside other Agencies, and Parastatals’ leadership.
Dr Orhii, a pharmacologist, physician, and biomedical scientist and administrator, was trained at the Stavropol State Medical Institute in 1989 where he did exceptionally well and was immediately offered an opportunity to pursue a Ph.D in medicine (emphasis in chrono – neurophyco pharmacology). He was the first foreigner to be sponsored by the school and awarded a teaching assistantship. He furthered exhibited his traits by defending his Ph.D program in 1992, Two years ahead of his time. His work from that program immediately attracted international attention, and he was invited to continue his research work in many countries including USA, Israel, Japan and Australia.
In 1993, Dr Orhii worked as a biomedical scientist at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, Texas, where he conducted research activities considered to be of interest to the United State of America. His medical training and excellent leadership qualities acquired from the decades of interacting with people of diverse cultural background in his capacity as liaison between school administrations and student bodies, coupled with his legal training, prepared him for a successful career as pharmaceutical litigator, seasoned administrator, and visionary leader.
It was no doubt therefore, that his tenure as Director General of NAFDAC witnessed fundamental, purposeful and ground breaking innovations and transformation.
Aware of his responsibilities of regulating and controlling the importation, exportation, manufacture, advertisement and sales and use of food, drugs, cosmetics, chemical, medical devices and packaged water, Doctor Orhii brought his experience to bear in checkmating the use of counterfeit regulated products. He introduced TRUSCAN -a handheld device used in checking the quality of medicines on the spot. The innovation, made NAFDAC, the first regulatory body in the world to successfully deploy TRUSCAN.
He equally introduce the use of MOBILE AUTHENTICATION SERVICE, a system whereby, a buyer can use the short messaging service (SMS), to check the quality of medicine before purchase. Packets of drugs brought are scratched like the GSM recharge cards, and the numbers are dialed to ascertain its originality and compliance with NAFDAC and World Health Organization (WHO) specifications. This ground-breaking innovation saw cell phone users being unwittingly recruited as NAFDAC’S informants.
In pursuit of his standardization agenda, he worked assiduously to support the local pharmaceutical manufactures through a 200 billion naira Pharmaceutical Intervention Fund (PIF), and actively encouraged the pharmaceutical industry to work towards the World Health Organization’s (WHO) prequalification of their products.
At major entry point into Nigeria (seaports, airports and land borders), his certification and due process campaigns are being meticulously upheld by the agency’s trusted and industrious officials who have equally been indoctrinated and trained to be upright.
Many product have been de –certified, due to abnormalities in their documentations, and failure of the manufacturers to conform to GOOD Manufacturers Practice (GMP), and some, re –certified once the agency’s laws and guidelines hitherto, ignored, are met by the importers.
Various un-wholesome packaged drugs, foods, cosmetics, medical devices have been confiscated at these points. At Seme, border for instance, different seizures of health-related products running into several billions of naira were carried out within the past seven years.
In one swoop, products worth about 74 million naira were confiscated. They include Leonart DS, Quinine tablets respectively, and Manix capsules. Other products including soaps, baby foods are on the list. NAFDAC’s enforcement mechanism at this border is so enhanced that, to every would-be importer, “The fear of Seme is the beginning of wisdom”. Their working synergy with other agencies of government is highly virile and productive, too.
The Enforcement arm of NAFDAC at Seme border have consistently, overtime, taken concerted actions that has led to several seizures of fake medicines, and sub-standard(and even expired) packaged foods worth over 10 billion naira(over 50 million USD).
Dr paul Orhii, once wondered why countries like india, china etc, where these drugs are manufactured, pronounce death sentences on their citizen’s when caught and found guilty and Nigeria which is the consumer nation, treat same case with levity.
He therefore suggested that “Death penalty and forfeiture of assets won’t be too much for someone whose business is to kill and maim others because of his/her evil desire”.
Dr Orhii activities at NAFDAC has no doubt, led the agency to world reckoning hence the World Bank’s desire to partner with it.
Written by, Tunde Umar-Daniah,
Lagos Based Maritime Journalist
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('comments'); });