The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, has revealed it has secured a pre-qualification approval for the agency’s Yaba laboratory, Lagos State, as a Central Drug Control Laboratory, CDCL, in Nigeria. The Director-General of NAFDAC, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, made this known during a news conference in Abuja on today Thursday. According to her, the World Health Organisation, WHO had recently Okayed its CDCL located in Lagos for its onwards testing of drugs.
Adeyeye disclosed that such approval of the laboratory for the agency was a significant milestone for the office and it’s a testimony for its unwavering dedication to ensuring the safety and quality of pharmaceutical products that is being supplied into the country.
According to her, the pre-qualification approval was communicated to the agency via mail received from the WHO pre-qualification inspection team since September 15, 2023.
Subsequently, she added that the global body later published the success on the WHO website, adding that the website address through which the public could cite and reference, was equally shared with the agency for dissemination, she revealed.
In her statement “You can access the information on the pre-qualification procedure, as well as the list of pre-qualified quality control laboratories, on the pre-qualification unit medicine website: https://extranet.who.int/pqweb/medicines.
”NAFDAC is Nigeria’s regulatory body responsible for ensuring the safety and quality of food, drugs, cosmetics, medical devices and other related products.
The Agency DG added that “NAFDAC’s mission is to safeguard public health by ensuring that only safe and wholesome products are made available to the Nigerian public,”
The statement continued that “This is a huge landmark achievement for the agency and Nigeria. Very few laboratories in the world have the apex status of WHO pre-qualification.
”Our journey towards this milestone actually started since year 2010, but with renewed efforts and more commitment to attempts by our management and the Federal Government in the last four years, we have finally achieved this goal.
“The WHO pre-qualification of the CDCL is a testament to the unwavering commitment of NAFDAC to meeting international standards of excellence in drug quality control and regulation.”
The visibly happy NAFDAC boss applauded the recognition the approval will bring for the country and its people in the field of health.
Listing the benefit she said, WHO pre-qualification of the CDCL would bring to Nigeria as global recognition, enhanced pharmaceutical quality, international collaboration and advanced public health.
Others are the streaming regulatory process, enhancement of credibility and advancement of Nigeria’s healthcare system, she added.
