The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, has put in place effective mechanisms to track and trace narcotic products right from production, the manufacturing plant, to the end user.
Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, the Director-General, in a statement from the agency on Sunday, while commissioning the narcotic drugs serialisation pilot project in Lagos, made the disclosure.
According to her, “the move was geared towards tackling the menace of drug and substance abuse in Nigeria, particularly amongst the teeming youth population.”
She explained that narcotics were chosen among other classes of drugs to mitigate drug abuse, saying that it would be replicated for all other NAFDAC-regulated drug products.
One of the greatest challenges in the healthcare sector, according to her, is the occurrence of substandard and falsified medicines, stressing that in Nigeria, the problem is further compounded by the chaotic drug distribution practices of unscrupulous elements who do not place a premium on human lives.
She added that these were the sharp practices that the Traceability Project (Track and Trace) sought to stop, pointing out that through the scanning device on an Android phone, consumers can now verify the authenticity of the drug product they consume and be assured of the quality of medicines.
The track and trace technology, she further explained is a veritable tool to be deployed in the event of medication recalls, pointing out that manufacturers must first commission the products they are registered to distribute into the NAFDAC Traceability System, and when it gets to the distributors or the wholesalers, they will also scan the products using a 2D Data Matrix barcode scanner to capture the event related to the movement of the product.
Mr. Tunde Odunlami, the Managing Director of the technical partner, GS1 Nigeria, stated that the journey started over ten years ago when the company started preaching the importance of traceability.