The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control has warned patent medicine dealers in Imo State against distributing counterfeit, unregistered and expired medicines, threatening business closure and criminal prosecution for offenders.
The agency’s Director-General, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, gave the warning on Friday in Owerri during a sensitisation workshop on pharmacovigilance and drug distribution safety organised for members of the Nigerian Association of Patent and Proprietary Medicine Dealers.
Adeyeye, represented by NAFDAC’s South-East Zonal Director, Dr Festus Ukadike, cautioned medicine vendors against placing financial gains above public health, describing the sale of unregistered medicines as a dangerous practice.
“Any unregistered product is fake. If you sell unregistered products, it means you are selling fake products,” she said.
She condemned practices such as illegally extending the expiry dates of medicines, altering product labels and sourcing drugs from questionable itinerant suppliers who offer unusually low prices.
The NAFDAC boss stressed that the prohibition on the sale of dangerous, unregistered and controlled substances remained in force, listing high-dose tramadol variants, anarcha and discontinued suspensions among products being illegally circulated at the grassroots.
She warned that expired medicines must not be repackaged or sold under any circumstances.
“Expired medicines have no second life; once they have expired, they must never be given a second chance to endanger human lives,” Adeyeye said.
She disclosed that the agency had strengthened its enforcement operations through intelligence-driven surveillance and handheld digital scanners to monitor drug supply chains, raid illegal warehouses and shut down facilities operated by non-compliant vendors.
According to her, dealers involved in falsifying medicines or illegally revalidating expired products risk immediate closure of their businesses, forfeiture of products, heavy administrative sanctions and criminal prosecution.
“Vendors engaging in criminal revalidation or sale of falsified drugs will face immediate business closure, product forfeiture, heavy administrative sanctions and criminal prosecution,” she warned.
Speaking on good storage and distribution practices, an Assistant Chief Regulatory Officer of NAFDAC, Dr Cletus Agwu, urged wholesalers and distributors to maintain the quality of medicines throughout the supply chain.
Agwu advised operators to obtain medical products only from authorised manufacturers and distribute them exclusively to entities legally permitted to handle such products.
He also emphasised the need for proper storage conditions, temperature monitoring and accurate record-keeping.
“Whatever is not documented is not done,” he said, stressing that distributors must maintain effective quality-control systems and appropriate documentation.
In a separate presentation on pharmacovigilance, NAFDAC’s Imo State Coordinator, Mrs Helen Okanya, explained that monitoring the safety of medicines must continue after they have been introduced into the market.
“No medicinal product is entirely safe for all humans in all places at all times; we must always live with some measures of uncertainty,” Okanya said.
She urged patent medicine dealers to report suspected adverse reactions, product quality defects and substandard medicines through the agency’s digital MedSafety App.
Okanya clarified that reporting adverse drug reactions was intended to identify and address public health concerns, rather than to punish medicine vendors.
She added that NAFDAC had conducted similar sensitisation workshops for patent medicine dealers in the Okigwe and Orlu Senatorial Districts of Imo State.
In his remarks, the State Chairman of NAPPMED, Mr Cyprian Okonkwo, commended the agency for organising the workshop, describing it as beneficial to members’ professional development and understanding of regulatory requirements.
Okonkwo pledged that the association would share the knowledge gained with medicine vendors across the state’s 27 local government areas, particularly on identifying and rejecting prohibited products.
He also assured NAFDAC of the association’s continued cooperation in eliminating counterfeit, expired and substandard medicines from the distribution chain to safeguard public health.
