Our labs are certified to check substandard products ― NAFDAC

Professor Mojisola Adeyeye, the Director-General (DG), National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), says five out of its seven laboratories are now certified to check substandard products.

Adeyeye said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Tuesday.

“We have seven laboratories and five out of the labs are now International Standard Organisation (ISO) certified,” she said.

According to her, while the Vaccine Lab became certified in January 2019, four were already certified before she came on board as the DG of the agency.

Adeyeye, however, said it was one thing to be certified and another thing to be re-certified or re-accredited.

The agency, she said, had been re-accredited since her assumption into office.

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“The certifying council, in their collective wisdom, said we need to make sure that those labs outside or the ones outside Lagos are strong enough to become directorates.

“So, we have expanded our directorates. We used to have 13 before, but now we have 18 directorates,” she said.

According to her, the Pharmacovigilant, Post Marketing Surveillance (PMS) and the Drug Evaluation and Research (DER) departments of the agency engage in a lot of work before products are certified for public use.

“These departments are the ones to find out whether the company producing a product is local or an importing company.

“So, you can see about four to six directorates working on a single report about a product,” she said.