Mohammed Shosanya
The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has announced the successful implementation of a $2,305,695.03 budget allocated for Global Fund’s grant cycle 6, aimed at boosting its operations.
At a press conference in Abuja,Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, the Director-General of NAFDAC, disclosed that a significant portion of the grant, $36,965.00, was dedicated to strengthening staff capacity in pharmacovigilance and adverse drug reaction (ADR) monitoring.
She also said,the agency’s commitment to staff capacity building in pharmacovigilance has been a longstanding practice, and this latest initiative reflects the agency’s ongoing dedication to maintaining and advancing the competence of its workforce.
According to her,the investment in capacity building has resulted in significant improvements in NAFDAC’s laboratory capabilities, enabling comprehensive analysis of various medicinal products.
Key procurements,she said, included equipment such as Liquid Chromatography, Dissolution Apparatus, Disintegration Apparatus, HPLC (with chiller), FTIR, UV Spectrophotometer, Top load balance, Ultra-Low Freezers, Polarimeter, Incubator, Digital Stopwatches, Digital Thermometers, PH Meters, and NIR Spectrophotometric Scanners.
She emphasized that the successful WHO Prequalification of the Central Drug Control Laboratory in Yaba, in part due to Global Fund’s support, will expand the testing of quality medicines in the laboratory, ensuring that Nigerians have access to high-quality pharmaceutical products.
She revealed that another critical aspect of the grant’s support was the phased implementation of traceability for health products, with an allocation of $1,131,328.82 (BL136).
She explained that the initiative has been instrumental in training a total of 1,561 stakeholders across 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, comprising 832 in the public sector and 729 in the private sector. It also involved the deployment of 435 android-enabled mobile scanners and 315 internet routers to facilitate the traceability of essential health commodities.
She added that awareness campaigns have been conducted among health sector stakeholders about the Nigeria traceability initiative, and various stakeholders have been engaged in the development of the Pharmaceutical Traceability Regulation.
Global Fund’s support has also played a pivotal role in strengthening the NAFDAC ISO 17025 laboratories, notably the Central Drug Control Laboratory (CDCL) in Yaba. An investment of $944,605.00 (BL38) was directed towards enhancing the laboratory’s capabilities, enabling a comprehensive analysis of a wide range of medicinal products,she said.
This substantial support from Global Fund has had a profound impact on NAFDAC’s overarching goal of ensuring the availability of safe and high-quality health products for Nigerians,she added.
Ibrahim Tajudeen, the Acting Executive Secretary County Coordinator Mechanisms of the Global Fund, explained the grant monitoring mechanism and highlighted that Nigeria, as a country, has been privileged to receive additional resources due to the successful utilization of the previous grant cycle from 2021 to 2023.
He said,Nigeria is set to receive additional grants totaling $933 million, which will be disbursed between January 2024 and December 2026, focusing on key health areas such as HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, and the strengthening of resilience systems.
These resources,he added,will play a crucial role in advancing Nigeria’s healthcare initiatives over the next three years.
