Fred Ezeh, Abuja
The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) said, yesterday, that it will expand and modify its food and drugs authentication system for efficient service delivery.
NAFDAC said it has developed a stronger and reliable platform to trace and track food, drugs and other consumables through the distribution chain. The aim of the tracker is to maintain quality, standards and avoid the importation and distribution of by unregistered or substandard products in the country.
According to the Director General of NAFDAC, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, the agency has secured the services of Global Standards 1 (GS1), to improve the efficiency of its tracking technology.
Adeyeye said that detailed information on its new authentication plan would be presented to stakeholders at the second African Healthcare Conference scheduled for Lagos.
“Before now, drugs and other consumables that left the manufacturers, are most often times are unaccounted for. Only few companies can do that that through bar coding which has huge limitations,” Said Adeyeye:
“But the new system that would be facilitated by GS 1, would help improve the existing monitoring system. It is expected to provide opportunity for tracking, tracing and also identify infiltrations into the supply and distribution chain. 10 companies currently using bar coding for verification. But the new step would do far more than that by following the drugs and food as it leaves the manufacturer through the supply chain to ensure that items that left the table of the manufacturers are exactly what was received by the consumer,” she added.