Nigeria Is Currently Battling Serious Drug Insecurity — NAFDAC

National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, has come out to say that Nigeria is currently facing a serious case of drug insecurity.

NAFDAC’s Director-General, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, revealed this recently while announcing the agency’s readiness to host the third African Medicine Quality Forum (AMQF) meeting in Abuja.

According to her, the situation could get worse if quick steps are not taken to monitor the local manufacturing of drugs in the country.

She added that efforts to tackle the present uncertainties trailing Nigeria’s drug situation might not be successful if China cannot contain the spread of the new Coronavirus in its country.

Her words, “We import 70 per cent of our drugs, and NAFDAC is sounding the alarm that we have drug insecurity in the country.

“The situation is made worse with the current Coronavirus threat. Even India is already feeling the insecurity because they also buy most of their active ingredients from China.

“If India is feeling it, then we should be praying (for divine intervention), because we don’t even manufacture anything but import everything including the active, the non-active ingredients, and the equipments used in drug making.

“It is a scary situation. Severe drug insecurity is staring us in the face. If something untoward happens to the countries we import our drugs from, then we are in serious trouble especially when 70 per cent of our drugs are not made in Nigeria.

“That’s why we are harping on local manufacturing of drug products in the country. If we fail to do that, then we will sink deeper in trouble. Achieving Universal Health Coverage will o be impossible unless we have drug security.”