The
Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug
Administration (NAFDAC), Dr Paul Orhii, has warned Nigerians against
abusing anti-malarial drugs.
He gave the warning recently in Abuja while presenting the results of a recent survey conducted by the agency.
The survey titled is: ‘Survey on the quality of antimalarial medicines in Nigeria 2014.’
The survey was funded by USAID through Promoting the Quality of
Medicines (PQM) programme of the United States Pharmacopoeia Convention.
According to Orhii, malaria remains a huge health threat to countries
in sub-saharan Africa including Nigeria, abuse of antimalarial drugs
makes one develop resistant strains of malaria that maybe difficult to
treat even with the right medicines.
He said studies conducted by NAFDAC from 2001 to 2014 showed that
there has been a positive trend and progressive decrease in the
incidence of counterfeit medicines in Nigeria.
The survey shows that the substandard anti-malarial drugs in circulation have now decreased to 3.6 percent.
“A study conducted by NAFDAC in collaboration with World Health
Organisation (WHO) and DFID showed a remarkable decrease in circulation
of counterfeit medicines from 40 per cent in 2001 to 16.7 per cent,” he
said.