By Yinka Shokunbi
Ahead scaling the final pre-qualification and pre-certification hurdles by the World Health Organisation (WHO) of five Nigerian drug manufacturers, some staff of the National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) have been trained in modern regulation procedures of biotechnology products.
The weeklong mentorship training was with the collaboration and partnership of the regulatory body of Canada, Health-Canada.
It exposed the staff to a number of rudimentary knowledge on the principles of vaccine regulations, collection, processing and screening methods, as well critical elements of regulating vaccines including the quality, safety and efficacy.
Team Leader of the Health-Canada Authority, Dr. Dean Smith, a Senior Scientific Evaluator in Bacterial and Combination Vaccine Division of the Biologics and Genetic Therapies Directorate of Health Canada, explained that the team is collaborating with NAFDAC to help bring the level of vaccine regulation in Nigeria to the acceptable best standards in the world.
He assured that exposing the Nigerian regulatory staff to Canada’s best practices is a benchmark that vaccines to be churned out of Nigeria, as well as biosciences products, would meet with and be acceptable to the WHO regulations.
Speaking at the event, Director General of the agency, Dr Paul Orhii, said the partnership with Health-Canada to train the Nigerian staff was necessitated by the findings of a WHO assessment of regulatory systems in sub-Saharan African countries between 2002 and 2009 in which the body found a universal shortage of qualified staff and need to urgently build capacity in the regard.
He noted that the agency desires to bring international standards to bear on all its activities hence the choice of mentorship by Health-Canada to NAFDAC staffs.
He applauded the decision of some neighbouring countries like Ghana, Sierra Leone, Niger and Uganda, to take advantage of the programme by sending some of their regulatory staff to benefit as a step in the right direction.
He said: “It would strengthen the global collaboration among African countries to wage a unified war against unwholesome and spurious drugs peddling across the continent”.
Orhii pointed out that while the agency continues to seek the review of the laws to accommodate life jail term and confiscation of assets of convicted drugs offenders, it would continue to strengthen its regulatory capacity to safeguard the lives of Nigerians through balancing access to quality foods and drugs.