SEPTEMBER 19, 2013
Director-General of NAFDAC, Dr. Paul Orhii.
The Director-General, National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, Dr. Paul Orhii, has said that the agency is reviewing its laws, with a view to making convicted fake drug dealers spend the rest of their lives in jail.
He said that the current law, which stipulated a fine of N500,000 or 15-year jail term upon conviction, was inadequate.
He stated that the new law sought life jail term and confiscation of assets upon conviction, compensation for victims where the counterfeit product was found to be the proximate cause of severe bodily injury.
Orhii, who was represented by a top official of NAFDAC, Mrs. Olajumoke Ojetokun, spoke on Thursday during a public enlightenment summit at the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital. The summit has as its theme “Curbing the menace of fake drugs: its health and economic implications.”
Orhi said the new law would also make counterfeiting a non-bailable offence, adding that a whistleblower clause was also included in the new law.
According to him, substandard, spurious, falsely-labelled, falsified and counterfeit medicines otherwise called fake drugs are medicines that are deliberately and fraudulently mislabeled with respect to identity and or source.
He decried that most of the medicines counterfeited were used for the treatment of life-threatening conditions and had high public health impact.
Orhii identified the health consequences of fake drugs to include denial of patients’ access to good quality medicines; increase in number of previously unknown diseases; increased and prolonged hospital admissions; increase in permanent disability and or deaths and increase in the development of new drug resistant strains of viruses, parasites and bacteria.
According to him, increase in cost of healthcare delivery due to treatment failures and overstretching of the inadequate health care facilities are other negative impacts of fake drugs.
He added that fake drugs could lead to loss of man hours at work, reduced productivity and earning capacity of the individual and the nation; and increase in the cost of treating diseases.
He added that because of fake drugs, money meant for infrastructural development was used for the treatment of diseases.
Orhii added that it could also lead to loss of foreign investment as a result of divestment by multinationals and loss of revenue from exportation of drugs due to rejection of made in Nigeria drugs by other countries.
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