The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) is set to encourage firms and manufacturers with incentives to develop pediatric medicines.
NAFDAC Director General (DG), Mojisola Adeyeye, stated thisin Lagos at a press conference organized to outline the agency’s focus for 2025.
She said the agency would focus on five strategic pillars to safeguard the health of Nigerians, which include strong governance and leadership, maternal, newborn, and child health; institutionalization of best practices; safety and quality of regulated products; and monitoring of the supply chain.
“Reflection on the past seven years has brought into focus the many accomplishments that have been achieved in NAFDAC and so many others to be attained”.
NAFDAC will continue to unlock the value chain by strengthening the industry with a focus on access to quality regulated products, and the agency would pay more attention to the safety and quality of regulated products for maternal, newborn, and child health and nutrition.
She said this would help to prevent postpartum hemorrhage and maternal deaths to drastically reduce child morbidity.
“Great emphasis will be placed on pediatric anti-malarial and antibiotics, manufacturers will be incentivized to develop pediatric medicines and handhelds toward achieving WHO prequalification.”
Adeyeye added that the agency would ensure that the agency’s workforce stays highly motivated and disciplined, noting that training will remain a premium for staff, despite that the agency is extremely understaffed.
“The number of staff that an agency has or should have depends on the population of the country because it is easier to regulate a country with one million than a country with 300 million people”.
“We burn candles on both ends, overstress ourselves because we have to safeguard the health of Nigerians; we are just asking for double or triple of what we currently have.”
