***NAFDAC says a new technology is helping the agency fish out fake drugs.
The National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control, NAFDAC, on Monday confiscated many expired, counterfeit, and banned drugs in some patent medicine stores in Gombe State.
The agency seized the drugs during raids on some shops by different enforcement teams in Gombe, Kaltungo, Billiri and Kumo town.
The Deputy Director, Ports Inspection of NAFDAC, Comfort Makanjuola, told newsmen that the raids were aimed at ensuring compliance with the law prohibiting the sale of unwholesome products.
She said NAFDAC has acquired a cutting edge technology, called truscan technology, for a quick and on-the-spot assessment of counterfeit and fake drugs.
“The truscan is a potable hand held device to curb activities of the merchants of death, who in their greed and quest to get rich, compromise the health of people that are already ill.
“This is in the agency’s relentless efforts to curb the distribution of fake, counterfeit, adulterated and unwholesome drugs and safeguard the health of the nation. So, with the help of this device, various drugs have been mopped up from circulation,” Mrs. Makanjuola said.
She said that the machine has helped in the arrest of importers and manufacturers of unwholesome drugs.
Mrs. Makanjuola said the agency, through research, found that drugs commonly faked are fast moving products, especially anti-malarial, antibiotics, anti-diabetes and anti-hypertension drugs.
“What we are saying is that we want to establish a situation where when we enter any pharmaceutical outlet or any patent medicine store, all the drugs there will be of good quality,’’ she said.
The NAFDAC official said the measure is to ensure that “people can have value for their money and people will not use their money to buy things that will now injure them or even kill them”.
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