By SOLA OGUNDIPE
As part of the multi-dimensional approach towards fighting the knotty problem of drug counterfeiting, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, has deployed regulatory officers to man the new mega drug distribution centres built in some parts of the country.

Director General, NAFDAC, Dr Paul Orhii, who dropped the hint at the International Conference on Drug Counterfeiting organised by USA Council on Foreign Relations in Washington DC, said officers posted to the mega centers will be provided the hand held drug testing device known as Truscan in order to track down drug counterfeiters.

Relating the development to Good health Weekly, NAFDAC’s Deputy Director (Public Relations & Protocol), Mr.Abubakar Jimoh said the DG noted that the move became necessary in view of the need to guarantee access of Nigerians to safe and good quality medicines, just as drug counterfeiters have targeted developing countries because of their weak regulatory system and porous borders.

Orhii who was widely applauded for his ground breaking innovative anti-counterfeiting strategies at the conference, observed that the Nigerian open drug market will be dismantled once sufficient mega drug distribution centers are built nationwide.

The DG observed that distribution of free drugs particularly anti-malarials by international donor agencies will pose serious public health challenge to developing countries in the near future because of current damage to production capacity of local drug manufacturing companies inflicted by freely donated drugs.

“What happens when the donor agencies eventually pull out? Free drugs could reduce drug counterfeiting temporarily, but in the long run it will kill incentive of local drug manufacturers,” he queried

In her opening remarks, the CFR Senior Fellow for Global Health, Dr Laurie Garrett pointed out that drug counterfeiting is growing worse because of globalisation but regretted that there is no sufficient data on how worse the problem is.

Garrett explained that shortage of Life Saving Medicines and companies using cheap and low active pharmaceutical ingredients because of profit have compounded drug counterfeiting problem.

She noted that prevalence of under formulation of drugs put at 30-60 percent in Nigeria, Burma and Bangladesh have led to drug resistance and serious public health challenge in those countries.