‘Maiduguri is new hub of fake drugs in West Africa’

The National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has decried the massive volumes of fake and adulterated drugs in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital.
It said the metropolis had now become a hub of such drugs in West African sub-region.The Chief Legal Officer of NAFDAC, Umar Shamaki, raised the alarm after raiding and sealing 18 pharmaceutical stores in the metropolis.
Speaking with newsmen after sealing the shops in Gambouru Ward of Maiduguri, Shamaki, alongside Chief Regulatory Officer of the agency, Waheed Agboola, said: “It is quite unfortunate that Maiduguri has now become thenew hub of fake and adulterated drugs in West African sub-region.”
“Every suburb of Maiduguri metropolis has a wholesale market where drugs sold are mainly fake and adulterated that pose health dangers to many residents.He said that most of these drugs found their ways into neighbouring Cameroun, Niger and Chad and by extension some Central African countries.
He, however, insisted that with the improved security, the agency would ensure that it was on top of its game by clamping down on all dealers of fake and adulterated drugs.
“As a responsible agency, NAFDAC owes it as a duty to the nation and her neighbours to ensure that fake and adulterated drugs do not get funnelled through Nigeria.
“NAFDAC is not out to clampdown on the wholesalers alone but will go to the root of this illegal trade by smoking out the importers and manufacturers,” Shamaki stressed.
He further disclosed that the growth of the market for fake and
adulterated drugs was as a result of the prolonged Boko Haram crisis in the North-East, which made it impossible to check the explosion. 

Source:Guardian