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By Emmanuel Adeleke
The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has mapped out plans to make herbal medicine practice globally acceptable and competitive.
NAFDAC’s Director General, Prof Mojisola Adeyeye, disclosed this during the celebration of this year’s International Traditional Medicine Day, which is celebrated on August 31 of every year.
Adeyeye, who commended the efforts of herbal medicine manufacturers across the country for their resilience, noted with a sense of pride the exploits of several herbal formulations at the clinical trial stage in preparation to getting approval for NAFDAC registration number.
She said the guidelines for the good manufacturing practice in herbal medicine production has been prepared by the agency, adding that the NAFDAC is working on a series of training for the practitioners to get them accustomed to the guidelines.
According to her, officers of the agency will commence vigorous inspection of facilities, to ascertain the level of preparedness of the herbal practitioners in the business after the training
“Based on the training they will receive, we will be able to make sure that they follow the guidelines to the letter. The agency would pass down the knowledge of the guidelines to over 614 herbal medicines facilities in Nigeria.
“The facilities have been divided into zones, with the agency’s staff across the federation to be deployed for the exercise. In the South West, our staff in Lagos, Ibadan, and Ogun will be deployed for the exercise. Likewise, people in the North, South South and other zones. Deploying NAFDAC staff in each zone for the job would reduce the cost on the agency,” she said
Adeyeye further said that the stakeholders training will start in Lagos, which has over 317 facilities.
She noted that after the training, the herbal practitioners would be given about a month or two to get themselves ready before the agency’s staff visit them for inspection.
Adeyeye stressed that anyone who is not functioning well will either have his facility shut or placed on hold.
“In herbal production, the level of hygiene is not so high. We have been telling those facilities that we visited that they needed to do something about their filling machines,” the DG said.
She noted that the manual method is not safe, warning that after December, the agency will not register any company without the semi-automated or automated capsule filling machines.
Adeyeyr stressed that a lot of people are using herbal medicine, saying: “The earlier we raise our standard the better for us.”
She further disclosed that the University of Lagos is trying to establish a manufacturing facility that all the herbal practitioners who do not have funds can use for production at a token.
“Herbal manufacturing GMP requires that the personnel be qualified, and the building be constructed to specific standards. The floor, walls, and roof must be clean, smooth, and impervious to moisture. All these are required to make contamination impossible,” she said.
The NAFDAC boss, however, expressed delight that three herbal product manufacturers are being awaited to conclude the clinical trials.
She disclosed that the three products piloted phases one and two, adding that they are still being awaited to come and validate their claims with a larger population sample size.
“We encourage the practitioners to present the pilot study results and we will evaluate and if satisfied, they can move on to the larger study and we will later grant approval for full registration. People react differently to different drugs, hence the need for a larger number of samples for the study in the larger phase three study of the clinical trial,” Adeyeye added.