Nigeria: Drug Registration: Nafdac's Policy Adjustment

28 January 2003

Lagos — On January 9 2003, the Minister of Health, Prof. A.B.C Nwosu, announced that the deadline for the registration of all drugs distributed and sold in Nigeria has been extended by one year from December 31, 2002. The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) had last year directed pharmaceutical companies to register all drugs not later than December 31, warning that any drugs not registered would be declared fake and their sellers arrested and prosecuted. In response to this detective, the Association of Anambra State Pharmaceutical Importers wrote on December 9, 2002 a letter to the NAFDAC Director General, Dr. (Mrs.) Dora Akunyili, requesting not only the extension of the deadline by 18 month but also a reduction of the registration fees of imported Over the Counter (OTC) drugs from one million naira (N1m) to one hundred and fifty thousand naira (N150, 000.00) and of ethical drugs from two hundred and fifty thousand naira (N250,000) to one hundred thousand naira (N100,000.00). The registration fee of each locally produced drug is N75, 000.00. Hitherto, the registration fee of all drugs was N10, 000.00.

NAFDAC's insistence on the registration of all drugs sold and distributed in Nigeria is in the overriding national interest. The havoc which substandard, counterfeit and expired drugs have wrought on Nigerian society is unimaginable. Nigerians have used their hard-earned resources to procure poisons and cancer- inducing substances in the mistaken belief that the products are genuine drugs. Manufacturers, importers and distributors of genuine drugs have been ruined by dealers in fake drugs who always offer their illicit products to the unsuspecting public at very cheap prices. All this has brought incalculable harm to Nigeria's image, as made-in-Nigeria drugs and foreign ones imported through Nigeria have at one time or another been banned in Ghana and some other West African nations.

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