Director — General of National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, Dr. Paul Orhii, has said that 270 million people in Africa lack access to medicines.

The NAFDAC boss, who spoke at a workshop for health correspondents, described access to essential medicines as a global problem, with the phenomenon occurring most in developing countries.

According to him, "One-third of the world's population lacks access to essential drugs with this occurring mostly in developing countries. The World Health Organization, WHO, estimates that roughly 270 million people in Africa lack regular access to even the most essential medicines."

He described, "drug counterfeiting as a major obstacle that prevents access to safe, quality and efficacious medicines and has also become a global problem. In our efforts to combat drug counterfeiting, the agency has adopted different strategies."

Orhii said as part of measures to combat the menace of drug counterfeiting, the agency has adopted sustained media campaign, training and retraining of its officials, reviewing NAFDAC laws, grassroots sensitisation, improved collaboration with national institutions, as well as establishing closer working ties with international drug and food regulatory agencies.

He stated that the workshop for health correspondents was one of the measures critical to the challenge of sensitizing the populace on the dangers of counterfeit drugs as well as ways of detecting such. The workshop was organized in collaboration with a public communication company, MEJ Global Communications Limited.