The National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) said it seized some substandard drugs during a raid at some drug outlets at Gboko in Benue.
It said the exercise was in response to report of Adverse Drug Reactions and irrational use of medicines that caused deaths in the area.
A statement issued by Mr Abubakar Jimoh, NAFDC’s Acting Director, Special Duties, said on Friday that the operation was carried out to take the substandard and expired drugs out of circulation.
The statement said that the exercise which lasted three days was carried out by the agency’s officers drawn from Abuja, Lagos and Benue.
“NAFDAC discovered various kinds of violation ranging from outlets selling unregistered products, failure to properly label products and the sale of expired products by some outlets.
“We have seen expired products and where people dump them, we have suggested how such drugs should be taken out of the system and have invited defaulters for further investigation,’’ it said.
The statement stated quoted Adeline Osakwe, NAFDAC’s Acting Director, Pharmacovigillance and Post-Marketing, described the raid as a success.
It urged medicine outlets in the area to sell the right drugs, store them under the right condition to maintain their efficacy.
The statement stated that medicine lost their efficacy because of failure to store them under the right condition and temperature.
It advised dealers not to source for products in the open markets but to buy from licenced distributors.
“In hospitals and clinics, we noticed that practitioners use containers to store products which lead to identification error.
“Products should be stored in their original containers and properly labelled,’’ it said, adding hospital should employ the services of trained pharmacists to handle drugs and keep them safe. (NAN)
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