IN  effort to doggedly put a stop to incidences of fake medicines in Nigeria, the Federal Government has set up a committee to fashion out strategies that would sanitise drug distribution  even as it has directed all manufacturers of anti malaria  medicines to protect  their  products with scratch codes by January 2012.

Noting that plans are in top gear to build drug centres across the country as part of efforts to monitor drug distribution in the country, Director General, National Agency for Food and Drug and Control (NAFDAC), Dr. Paul Orhii said government had no intention of demolishing any drug market but said as bsoon as enough drug centres are completed across the Federation, a strict directive would be given to all manufacturers to deal with only such centres.

Orhii who spoke in Lagos during the formal launch of the Lonart DS Mobile Authentication Service (MAS), said the drug market in Kano was already completed.

“It is a facility that has all that is required to ensure safe medicines and monitor drug distribution chain. Also, NAFDAC officials will be in the various drug market centres with truscan to ensure that all the drugs from manufacturers are tested before they are transferred to other distribution.

He appealed to the private sector to assist the government in construction of drug centres across the nation, warning that NAFDAC would soon begin to sanction any importer or manufacturer whose products are found in the open drug market.

Launching the MAS  for Lonart DS, Orhii noted that Nigeria is the first  to deploy MAS to fight counterfeiting regulated products. He said the platform being deployed for Lonart DS was in line with strategies and policy towards reducing the prevalence of fake, counterfeit and sub- standard regulated products in circulation in Nigeria and beyond.

Announcing that the Federal Government has directed that all anti malarials be protected with scratch codes by January 2012, he said the initiative by Green Life Pharmaceuticals proved rewarding and further armed regulators in the unrelenting war in the ever-changing landscape of combating counterfeits

Executive Chairman, Greenlife Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Dr. Obiora Chukwuka  said the MAS would assist the company to further protect its brands from abuse by counterfeiters.