BY CHINYERE OBIORA – The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has called on healthcare professionals, medicine vendors, patients, and other stakeholders to promote the rational use of medicines and strengthen pharmacovigilance practices to improve patient safety and public health outcomes across Nigeria.
The appeal was made during a Community Sensitisation Programme on Pharmacovigilance held in Mushin Local Government Area, Lagos State where the growing dangers associated with the irrational use of medicines were highlighted by officials of NAFDAC.
Speaking at the event on behalf of the Director-General of NAFDAC, Professor Mojisola Adeyeye, the Agency’s Director of Pharmacovigilance, Dr. Uchenna Elemuwa, identified self-medication, misuse of antibiotics, incorrect dosing, sharing of prescribed drugs, and the use of counterfeit or substandard medicines as major factors contributing to adverse health outcomes.
Dr Elemuwa noted that these practices often result in adverse drug reactions, treatment failure, antimicrobial resistance, increased healthcare costs, and preventable deaths, just as she stressed the importance of pharmacovigilance, which is the science and activities relating to the detection, assessment, understanding, and prevention of adverse effects or other medicine-related problems, in ensuring the continued safety and effectiveness of medicines after they have been approved for public use.
According to her, “Pharmacovigilance plays a critical role in protecting patients by identifying and addressing medicine-related risks, thereby enhancing the overall quality of healthcare delivery,” assuring that NAFDAC remained committed to strengthening post-market surveillance, adverse drug reaction reporting systems, risk communication strategies, and public awareness campaigns aimed at promoting medicine safety.
She urged healthcare professionals and members of the public to make use of available reporting channels to report adverse drug reactions and other medicine-related concerns, noting that every report contributes to safeguarding lives and improving healthcare outcomes.
While soliciting stronger collaboration among healthcare institutions, professional associations, pharmaceutical industry stakeholders, and community groups to address the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance and promote the safe use of medicines, the NAFDAC boss emphasized that collective action is essential to building a robust culture of pharmacovigilance and ensuring that medicines available to Nigerians remain safe, effective, and of high quality.
This nationwide campaign serves as a critical frontline defense in the agency’s escalating battle against unsafe pharmaceuticals and by aggressively expanding its drug safety monitoring infrastructure, the regulatory body is actively transforming passive consumers into vigilant partners in public health.
The initiative directly empowers citizens to detect and report adverse drug reactions, effectively creating a massive, crowdsourced surveillance network designed to flush out hazardous medications from the domestic market.
