Mojisola Adeyeye, the Director-General, National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), has called for safer drug storage and distribution practices across Nigeria’s drug markets.

She made the call on Saturday during a stakeholders’ engagement with the Patent Medicine Dealers Association, Ogbete, Enugu.

The engagement was a sensitisation programme on Good Storage and Distribution Practices (GSDP).

Mrs Adeyeye, who was represented by NAFDAC’s South-East zonal director, Festus Ukadike, said the engagement was to enlighten medicine traders about safer storage practices.

She urged medicine dealers to procure their products only from legitimate manufacturers, importers and authorised distribution channels.

She added that the manufacture, importation, distribution and sale of counterfeit or substandard products constituted a grave threat to public health, warning that engaging in the act attracted severe regulatory sanctions.

She equally warned medicine dealers against the sale of expired products, adding that practices such as relabelling or alteration of expiry dates were unethical and criminal.

Mrs Adeyeye encouraged them to stock and sell only NAFDAC-registered, safe, efficacious and wholesome products.

She also urged drug sellers to embrace the coordinated wholesale centre (CWC) facility initiative, which ensures safer drug distribution mechanisms.

According to her, the future of pharmaceutical distribution in Nigeria relies on organised, secured and internationally compliant systems.

The NAFDAC boss described the current open drug market system operated in the state and across the country as chaotic, poorly regulated and illegal.

She said that under a modern, structurally integrated framework, all allied regulatory agencies like NAFDAC, PCN, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency and the police would jointly regulate the medicine markets.

“Open Drug markets shall soon be a thing of the past and the CWC is designed to enhance security, accountability and proper regulatory oversight,” she said.

She explained that medicines were specialised products and people who dealt in the sale of medicines must have a high level of responsibility and accountability.

She, therefore, urged drug traders to develop a proper system of recording medicines sold and reporting any adverse reactions arising from the intake of these medicines by consumers.

Cletus Agu, the assistant chief regulatory officer, NAFDAC, trained drug dealers on how to report cases of adverse drug reactions among consumers and on good storage and distribution practices.

He encouraged them to properly record the procurement, storage, distribution and sale of NAFDAC-approved medicines.

 (NAN)