By SOLA OGUNDIPE

Congratulatory messages have continued to pour in from the United States of America, the United Kingdom, the European Union and  Russian Federation among others, over selection of Director General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control,NAFDAC, Dr. Paul Orhii, as the first substantive Chairman of the Member State Mechanism, MSM.

The NAFDAC DG’s approval to head the  Mechanism for the international fight against Substandard, Spurious, Falsely-Labeled, Falsified and Counterfeit, SSFFC, was formally announced last week during  the 2nd meeting of the world anti-counterfeiting body in Geneva, Switzerland.

The MSM is a novel platform established in 2011 under the auspices of the  WHO, to  tackle the global problem of spurious, substandard and counterfeit medicines.

The high powered and coveted activities leading to the selection of the NAFDAC Boss as Chair of the MSM actually started in November, 2012 at a meeting convened by WHO in Buenos Aires, Argentina to discuss the structure, headship, tenure, work plan and other issues surrounding the new mechanism.

In his capacity as Chairman. Orhii  presented the report of the steering committee  held in July 2013, to the plenary of the member-nations for consideration. He expressed  profound appreciation to the Director General WHO, Dr. Margaret Chan, and all  delegates for the recognition while commending efforts of the open-ended working group Chaired by Bruno Neves Silva of Brazil and efforts of other countries  to the work of MSM.

Chairman, NAFDAC Governing Council, Professor John Ibu described the headship of the WHO-driven MSM as “an international acclamation and recognition of the global leadership of Orhii in the fight against drug counterfeiting”.