NAFDAC mobilizes 42 schools for fight against fake, counterfeit drug, food products in Anambra

www.odogwublog.com reports that no fewer than 42 secondary schools in Anambra have been mobilized by the National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and

Control (NAFDAC) for fight against fake and counterfeit drug and food products.

The Director-General of NAFDAC, Dr. Paul Orhii, said that the NAFDAC Consumer Safety Club (NCSC) in secondary schools, ``which is a catch them young programme’, was yielding the needed positive result as hundreds of schools had key-in into the programme nationwide.

Orhii said this during an award ceremony of NAFDAC annual Secondary Schools Competition for members of NCSC in Anambra on yesterday in Onitsha, Anambra State.

He noted that the agency was moulding a future generation that ``is not only empowered to be upright but demand uprightness from others’’.

``It is however important to emphasize that the membership of NCSC is just for the purpose of participating in annual competitions, it is an opportunity for you to make a positive difference in all aspects of life.

``As NCSC members, you have the responsibility to assist in information flow on NAFDAC’s regulatory activities, and promote the fight against fake and counterfeit regulated products.

``Programmes have been outlined to keep NCSC members active for the rest of the year. This would be posted on their website periodically.


``We will also continue to strengthen your capacity through publications, newsletters, symposia etc, so as to ensure that you will indeed become change agents,’’ the director-general noted.


The Co-ordinator of NAFDAC in Anambra, Dr Christiana Esenwah, noted that NAFDAC was targeting to establish the NCSC club in additional 10 secondary schools in Anambra before the end of the year.


``These students are our foot soldiers within their schools, localities, neighbourhoods and immediate families; and we want NAFDAC, its activities and regulation to be home-grown name and thing.


``We encourage these students to be part of what we are doing and help in our pharmaco-vigilance surveillance especially in Anambra; by reporting to any NAFDAC office or official anything that they find going wrong in their neighbourhoods on our regulated products,’’ Esenwah said.


The winner of NCSC senior secondary schools competition for 2015 in Anambra, Master Victor Okechukwu from Federal Government College, Nise, assured that he would inculcate NAFDAC message to other students in his school. 


``I would also join actively to fight against fake and counterfeit drug and food products that have led to the death of many people in Anambra,’’ he said.

Photos of the event