Akunyili canvasses NAFDAC regulated drug centres
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The Director General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Professor Dora Nkem Akunyili, has thrown a challenge to deep-pocket investors and the banking industry to spearhead a private sector driven effort towards establishing a network of NAFDAC – regulated Zonal Drug Distribution Centres (ZDDC), a.k.a. Drug Mart, as the best way to consolidate the successes so far achieved in the battle against fake drugs in Nigeria. Akunyili recalled that the idea was first proposed in 2001, but individuals she described as “self seeking and short sighted” fought and truncated the commencement of the concept. Given the string of victories recorded by the Akunyili-led NAFDAC in the on-going war against fake drugs, she expressed her belief that the banking industry, working in tandem with members of the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Group of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (PMG-MAN), and other institutional investors like Transcorp Plc, UACN Properties Development Company Plc, could establish the proposed ZDDC, to ensure permanent elimination of all fake drug distributors operating from the illegal open drug markets. Just as the late US President, John F. Kennedy, charged Americans not to ask for what the country could do for them but rather to ask for what they could do for their country, Akunyili made a passionate appeal to the organised private sector to help consolidate the victories achieved. Her words: “The banks, reputable pharmaceutical companies, and indeed all Nigerians have doggedly supported NAFDAC in the war against fake drugs and other unwholesome regulated products. But I must say that we are at a very critical juncture now where we must consolidate the gains we have made so far. I therefore ask the organised private sector to take the support they have been giving to NAFDAC to the next level. They can do this by working together to establish wholesale drug distribution centers. “The reality is that uncontrolled handling of drugs by both registered and unregistered drug premises, professionals and non-professionals, literate and illiterate, market women and bus vendors, has led to poor availability of essential medicines, unquantifiable drug problems, making recalls of drugs very difficult and almost impossible at some point, in addition to creating poor professional image and unfulfilled professional roles and benefits,” Akunyili added. Way back in 2001, the Agency had discovered that one of the major causes of the proliferation of fake drugs in Nigeria was the existence of the chaotic drug distribution channels through the illegal open drug markets spread across the country. NAFDAC, through a research study based on a combination of best practices in drug distribution of various developed and developing countries, proposed the ZDDC. It was designed to intervene at the wholesale/distribution of pharmaceuticals in Nigeria and serve as a permanent replacement for the open drug markets. The ZDDC’s were to be established in the six geopolitical zones of the country, starting with Onitsha and Kano, the biggest drug markets. This idea was sold the National Assembly, which budgeted N800 million for it. The then governors of Kano and Anambra states allocated plots of land to the Agency for the development of the centres. More : sunnewsonline.com |