NAFDAC To Fight Food-Borne Hazards

The National Agency for
Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), has expressed commitment to fighting food-borne hazards at every stage of the food chain in the country.
The Director-General of the agency, Dr Pual Orhii, gave the assurance in Ibadan while declaring open, an awareness workshop for farmers and manufacturers and importers of veterinary medicines, pesticides and animal feeds.
The NAFDAC chief was represented by the NAFDAC Director of Veterinary Medicine and Allied Products, Dr Musa Umar.
He said that the workshop was aimed at creating awareness on the need to produce safe food through safe use of veterinary medicines, pesticides and animal feeds.
According to him, the agency created the directorate of veterinary medicine and allied products in order to effectively control food-borne hazards at every stage of the food chain.
“The management of the agency in the past concentrated its efforts on winning the fight against counterfeit, fake and substandard medicines.
“Having achieved a considerable level of success in this fight, it has become necessary for the agency to focus on other aspects of control of regulated products.
“Safe and responsible use of veterinary medicines and pesticides should not end with registration,’’ he said.
“This points to the fact that farmers, who are the custodians of our animal protein sources, do not care about withdrawal periods as indicated on the labels of drugs and vaccines they use,’’ Orhii alleged.
“I strongly believed that, by the end of this workshop, such an unacceptable practice will become a thing of the past,’’ he said.
The Oyo State Coordinator of NAFDAC, Rev. Benjamin Haruna, said that the workshop was aimed at getting full cooperation and commitment of stakeholders to human and animal health.
The workshop drew participants from all the South-West states.