Speaking in Uyo on Thursday at a one-day sensitisation workshop for NAFDAC shareholders, director-general of NAFDAC, Dr. Paul Orhii said the proposed law includes life jail term, confiscation of assets upon conviction, and compensation of victims if products are found to be the immediate cause of death or severe injury to the victim.
“The agency is reviewing the current law, which stipulates a fine of N500,000 or 15-year jail term upon conviction, to make our laws serve as a deterrent and be in line with international requirements for the regulation of food, drugs and other related products,” said the DG, who was represented by the state director of the agency, Mr. Francis Ifem.
In line with the theme of the workshop, Adulterated and Substandard Regulated Products: A Fight for All, he assured of NAFDAC’s commitment to ensuring that counterfeit drugs offences are not bailable.
Describing counterfeit drugs as those deliberately and fraudulently mislabelled and those with wrong and inactive ingredients, he disclosed that the agency had adopted various strategies, including public enlightenment, law reform, national and international collaborations, and cutting edge technologies, to fight the ills.
Facilitator of the workshop, Mrs. Charitable Okoye revealed plans for a nationwide campaign that would bring together all patent medicine dealers and brief them on the ills of counterfeit products.
She added that medicine dealers have taken the fight against fake drugs upon themselves, forming taskforce groups that have been visiting drug shops and closing down the fake ones among them.
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