As part of efforts to reduce the harmful consumption of unwholesome foods and fake medical products, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has taken the sensitisation campaign for behavioural change to the grassroots.
Mojisola Adeyeye, the director-general of the NAFDAC, at the flag-off of the sensitisation campaign in Lagos, regretted that Nigeria has a greater prevalence share of the global problem of falsified medical products and unwholesome food. Hence, the dissemination of food and drug safety information is an important aspect of NAFDAC regulatory activity.
“Public awareness campaign is one of the veritable regulatory mechanisms put in place by NAFDAC to promote and protect the health of our people. A well informed, sensitised and educated Citizenry is the bedrock of effective regulation,” said Adeyeye who was represented by Samson Adebayo, the director of ports inspection directorate at NAFDAC.
She reassured the public that NAFDAC would not leave any stone unturned in its drive to rid the country of the menace of falsified medical products, unwholesome food, harmful cosmetics, poorly packaged water and other substandard regulated products.
Read also: NAFDAC warns against fake medicines, substandard products
The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic has aggravated the problem with the challenge posed by substandard and falsified personal protective equipment (PPEs).
According to Adeyeye, the sensitisation campaigns will contribute significantly to the Federal Government’s efforts to inform, sensitise, educate and alert the public about the inherent dangers of intake and use of those regulated products.
Adeyeye, therefore, disclosed that the key focus areas of the sensitisation were dangers of buying medicines from hawkers; abuse of codeine and self-medication especially among youth, and the dangerous effects of using Kerosene tanker to load groundnut oil or other consumables.
Other areas are the dangerous practice of using potassium bromate to bake bread; use of Azo-dyes in palm oil which causes cancer; dangers of using Sniper to preserve any type of food or to keep flies away from meat; dangers of transfat and consumption of excessive oil; use of formalin on food and its associated health hazards; low level of exclusive breastfeeding practice by lactating mothers and its associated health hazards. Others are dangers of wrong use of pesticides and insecticides; wrong use of chemicals and their hazardous effects, and the problem of antimicrobial resistance arising from animal meat.
