Globally, healthcare provision, development and regulation
is embracive of dynamic and modernized practices. It is such that the responsibility of intensifying continuous search for means of maximally improving on the sector rest squarely on its assigned managers .
It is in this regard that the sector is encouraged to evolve and sustain world class scientific think-tanks to thoroughly  and persistently conduct research for the purpose of modernizing operations and spearheading novel as well as dynamic inventions with a view to efficiently better specialized service delivery.
Expectedly, laborious efforts of regulators in the sector are such that they are positioned to midwife a change for progress in this regard.   Change, as a revolutionary catalyst therefore, has a dual implication on human and national development. It could be either progressive or retrogressive in nature depending on its mode of application. When ideally embraced and implemented, the enormity of dividends amassable is better imagined.
Implicatively, it is not surprising that the current President Muhammadu  Buhari-led government is embracive of change as a socio-economic and political reform lubricant. The President and his economic cum political management team’s preference for prosperity-driven change is indeed easily comprehensible given the nation’s antecedents .
Patriotically speaking, Nigerians are desirous of a holistic change in virtually all segments of human endeavor be it in the social, economic and political sectors. For the enhancement of  audience understanding, acceptable and maximally celebrateable change encompasses initiating far-reaching dynamic reforms as well as consolidating on and sustaining  them.
In NAFDAC, for instance, the radical departure from a primordial to a digitalized era and approach to combating  the age-long  menace of drug counterfeiting in Nigeria is indeed a highly applaudable change initiative. It is recorded and noted globally, that this singular very bold patriotic move in the nation’s healthcare regulating sector has helped to reduce prevalence of counterfeited /fake drugs or pharmaceuticals from a whooping  64 percent previously, to a paltry  3 percent or less currently.
This technology-based dynamism brought to bear on the agency by the Dr. Paul Orhii-led NAFDAC management, remains outrightly unprecedented in the annals of the nation’s healthcare regulation.
The wisdom in the adoption of GSM SMS as a tool for anti-drug counterfeiting by the agency is to successfully conscript the teaming Nigeria’s mobile telephone users into the war against counterfeiters aside its maximum grassroots effect .The practice is such that a set of numerical numbers are ascribed on pharmaceutical products/drug packs and sealed for unveiling. They are in turn expected to be efficiently copied by prospective products users at the point of purchase (ie pharmacy, chemist shop/patent drug stores) as a short message {GSM SMS} and forwarded/sent to another NAFDAC specified set of numbers also inscribed on products packets. Upon receipt, NAFDAC respond swiftly to the consumer product verification code by confirming the authenticity or otherwise of products.
This consumers-mandated action will, according to NAFDAC, help them speedily ascertain the authenticity or otherwise of drugs before purchase. Having successfully placed certain measure of anti-counterfeiting powers in the hands of the teeming Nigerian populace, NAFDAC expect Nigerians to be very active in this life-saving crusade.
They must ensure that only pharmaceuticals with NAFDAC product authentication code are patronized and ceaselessly demanded while manufacturers should ensure that many if not all their pharmaceutical products are covered by this authentication policy.
Understandably, entrenching and enhancing watertight security for genuine pharmaceutical products via relentless combating of drug faking and smuggling is by no means a very herculean task. There is no doubt that the responsibility of demystifying drug counterfeiters  and preserving the life of the people ,a most valuable asset , also rest squarely on the shoulders of products manufacturers.
When fake drugs are allowed to freely prevail in a society, a huge set back is brought upon efficient and effective public healthcare development as well as the United Nation’s human health boosting goals which is often targeted towards attaining massive decline in infant/adult mortality. We must not be unmindful of the fact that fake drugs deny people of the right to safe, efficacious and quality medicines while simultaneously robbing them of the requisite valued manpower, economic benefits and maximally undermining the nation’s efforts at ensuring qualitative healthcare delivery services for the teaming populace.
Consequently, this has necessitated the clarion call by NAFDAC on the imperativeness of aggressively sustained international conventions against drug counterfeiting. We must therefore remain satisfactory of the agency’s achievements as its approach in this regard is commendable,  and appropriate steps in the night direction.
Notably, by dispassionately deploying the MAS SMS[mobile telephone short message service],Truscan (hand held device for instant detection of fake drugs), Radio Frequency Identification System (RFID) for products and documents verification],Black Eye machines[for detecting counterfeit medicines] as well as the mobile mini laboratory kits ,the agency has successfully demonstrated adequate sincerity in its avowed   commitment towards ensuring that Nigerians persistently have unhindered access to efficacious ,qualitative and very safe medicines –an indigenous success which incidentally can no longer be hidden as it has become a reference point and case study for the global community.
Has NAFDAC lived up to the expectations of its founding fathers? The response is a resounding yes in view of  its modernized dynamic and scintillating approaches. When critically considered, it could be asserted that the huge confidence reposed in NAFDAC incumbent leadership as it relates to the promotion and safeguarding of public health is ideally placed.
Imperatively, therefore, drug producers and other relevant stakeholders in the sector should adequately partner with the agency with a view to ensuring that these technologies are efficiently and effectively applied particularly on highly susceptible products. Upon due assessment, however ,it has become certain that by evolving and adopting these distinct and novel technologies, NAFDAC has so far remained continuously on top of her mandate as well as remain outrightly ahead of these inhuman counterfeiters of life-saving pharmaceutical products.
The onus therefore, rest on both the government and Nigerian people to lend maximum support on a sustained bases to the patriotic efforts of NAFDAC to outrightly eradicate drug counterfeiters who are globally regarded as enemies of the entire human race as they often target drugs with high volume of use/patronage.
Ikhilae, is a Lagos State based Public Affairs Analyst.

Martins Ikhilae