By Chioma Obinna
LAGOS—National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, yesterday, said findings from its ongoing nationwide TRUSCAN Surveillance exercise has shown appreciable decrease in fake and counterfeit drugs in circulation.

TRUSCAN is a hand-held device used for on- the-spot assessment of quality of pharmaceutical products to ascertain their authenticity and curb activities of counterfeiters.  So far, the surveillance activities had been carried out in 26 states in the country.

Meanwhile, the agency, yesterday, shut 12 bakeries in Ondo State for producing under unhygienic conditions, while it destroyed hundreds of loaves of bread found to be unfit for human consumption.

Briefing journalists, shortly after the exercise in Lagos, NAFDAC’s Deputy Director, Ports Inspection Director, Mrs Comfort Makanjuola, explained that the exercise which began in January 2010 was based on statistical data from risk assessment and profiling carried out by the agency on 15 commonly faked and used drugs in the country.

According to her, studies by the agency showed that the counterfeiters target fast moving and expensive drugs, such as anti-diabetics, anti-malarial, anti-hypertensive and antibiotics.

Corroborating her position,  Assistant Director, Ports Inspectorate Directorate, Mrs. Aigbomian Leli, who stressed that the incidences of fake drugs had reduced drastically due to the activities of the agency, said, “When we started the assignment in January 2010, we used to mop up more products than we are mopping up now.

The agency is adopting multi prong approach to reduce counterfeit drugs in circulation. We had initiated the SMS and doing mop up. We are using the TRUSCAN and states offices also monitoring all the outlets.  With this combined efforts, we had seen a much more reduced fake drugs in circulation.”