Bravo: Customs Seizes Fake Malaria Drugs Worth N20 Million

SAN FRANCISCO, September 23, (THEWILL) – The Nigeria Customs Service has confiscated substandard anti-malaria drugs and antibiotics, valued at N20million being smuggled into the country through the Nigeria/Benin Republic border at idiroko in Ogun State.

The Area Controller of the Ogun State Command of the service, Multafu Waindu, made this known as he handed over the confiscated drugs to the representative of the National Agency for Food, Drugs Administration and Control, NAFDAC.

“The fake drugs were on onward transportation into the country to be sold in the open market,” he said, adding that the command would not relent in its efforts to curtail smuggling activities in the state.

The Officer in Charge, Port Inspection Directorate of NAFDAC in Idiroko, Datol Andrew, receiving the drugs, said the confiscation has saved over a million Nigerians from falling victim to fake drugs use.

He however, expressed his disappointment that the importer of the drugs was not nabbed to serve as a deterrent to others who engage in such act declaring that the agency would continue to work in partnership with the Customs to ensure illicit drugs and food items were prevented from finding their way into the country.

Meanwhile, a laboratory scientist, Mr Chinenye Nwekpe, has urged Nigerians to always comply with the national policy on malaria that stipulates medical test before receiving treatment.

Nwekpe, a former Chairman of Medical Laboratory Scientists, Enugu State chapter, made the plea in an interview in Enugu, saying the act will reduce unnecessary and irrational use of anti-malarial drugs.

He declared that implementing the policy might take time, but would save many lives at the end as he urged pharmacists and medicine store owners to desist from attending to any patient that refused to go for test before requesting for malaria treatment.

Story by David Oputah