National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, on Monday, confiscated suspected fake and adulterated pharmaceutical products at Onitsha Bridgehead drug market in Anambra State.
The South-East Coordinator of NAFDAC, Dr Martin Iluyomade, who led the team on the raid, told newsmen that the operation would be total and continuous.
Iluyomade said the operation followed a long period of surveillance and data collection on substandard and falsified medicines in line with its mandate of safeguarding the health of the nation.
According to him, the national operation is taking place simultaneously in all the major drug markets in the South-East.
He added that some of the traders had chemicals in one shop, empty containers, unbranded medicines and labeled containers with misleading information including NAFDAC registration number.
“The discovery has been interesting, we found unpackaged medicines, empty containers prefixed labeled with manufacturing date and expiry dates, these are medicines they will sell to the unsuspecting public,” he said.
Iluyomade said the market leadership had not been collaborating with the agency in the fight against fake drugs.
The coordinator said the operation is a continuous process and it would go on for as long as it ttakes to sanitise the market, while vowing that culprits will be identified, arrested and subjected to the laws of the country.
