TheCable

The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) says over 50 percent of certificates of pharmaceutical products (CPP) of medicines imported into Nigeria are fake.

A certificate of a pharmaceutical product is a document issued in a format recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) that establishes the status of the product in the exporting country.

Speaking on Monday at a stakeholders’ engagement meeting with regulators, policymakers, and law enforcement agencies in Abuja, Mojisola Adeyeye, NAFDAC director-general (DG), said sending a CPP out to another country gives assurance on the quality of the product.

But the NAFDAC DG noted that most certificates of pharmaceutical products imported into Nigeria are fake.

“We have a scheme where before medicines that were approved leave that part of the world, we do pre-shipment testing, and that comes with CPP to assure us of quality, but that is not the case, because through our scheme we have been able to stop over 140 products that were approved for coming in,” she said.

“We found out that more than 50 percent of the CPPs that come into our country are fake. Part of those responsible is our people that go to China or India and we are going to deal with it.

“We are very stringent than ever and there is no cutting of corners, we have blacklisted many companies, we have sanctioned them because we want people to respect our people.”

She said trade is a mutual agreement adding that if that agreement is harming one party to the deal, it would be stopped.

“If a company is suspected to be compromising, in two hours we will be there, and we will shut the company down,” she said.