Lawmakers pledge support for NAFDAC

The joint National Assembly (NASS) Committee on Health has pledged continuous support for the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) in its fight against counterfeit drugs.

Senator Ibrahim Oloriegbe, the Senate Committee Chairman on Health and his counterpart Hon. Yusuf Sununu, Chairman House Committee on Healthcare Services made the commitment at the opening section of the 3rd African Medicine Quality Forum in Abuja on Tuesday.

The theme of the event is “Perfect vision for quality medicines in Africa 2020.”

Oloriegbe said the quality of medicine used by the people to cure or manage ailments is important in the healthcare delivery system of any nation.

The senator, representing Kwara central, said that with unhealthy citizens no nation would be able to fully harvest her potentials.

He said the establishment of Africa Medicine Quality Forum (AMQF) as a continental organisation to pursue the eradication of substandard and falsified medicines is a long-awaited opportunity that we all must seize and make good use of.

He said the coming together of the medicine control laboratories of the national regulatory authority in Africa would ensure collaboration in fighting substandard and falsified medicines across Africa.

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“The importance of quality control testing laboratories cannot be overemphasised in the medicine supply chain from the manufacturing plant, through the distribution network and finally to the patients,” Oloriegbe said.

He urged the agency to map out strategies for strengthening national quality control laboratories infrastructure and systems as it would help to inform and consistently regulate decisions in Africa.

He said that NASS would continue to provide the necessary support for NAFDAC to attain the required world standard as a regulatory body.

Also, Sununu said that a good legal framework underpins the ability of a national regulatory authority to fulfill its mandate and regulatory functions that span the medical product life cycle.

This, according to Sununu, includes clinical trial, oversights, marketing authorisation and registration, licensing and inspection of premises, market surveillance among others.

He said that the lawmakers were committed to enacting laws and regulations that would ensure that only safe and efficacious medicine were available to citizens.

NAN