The Director General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), have said that counterfeit drugs have been identified as one of the factors responsible for treatment failures and development of drug resistance.
The Director General, Dr. Paul Orhii, stated this during the inauguration of the re-constituted Federal and state task forces on counterfeit and unwholesome processed foods, recently in Abuja.
Dr. Orhii said counterfeit drugs is more prevalent in developing nations where the counterfeiters target drugs that are used in high volume for managing diseases of public health importance.
He further stated that counterfeiters produce nearly “exact replicas of genuine drugs, copying every detail including packaging and labeling,” adding that this has denied patients access to quality medicines and caused untimely deaths of innocent citizens.
Further speaking, the DG NAFDAC said in order to combat these counterfeit drugs, the federal and state task forces were established to serve as a deterrent to perpetrators.
He said “in consideration of this concern, the Federal government promulgated the counterfeit and fake drugs decree No. 17 of 1989 under which the Task Force on counterfeit and fake drugs was established to serve as a deterrent to perpetrators from importing, manufacturing and distributing or selling fake drugs in Nigeria.
Also speaking, the Minister for health, Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu, said counterfeit medicines have become a global public health problem causing death, disability and injury affecting adults and children, and urged NAFDAC to take all appropriate measures at stemming the menace of fake and counterfeit drugs.
