NAFDAC strengthens regulatory process with $2m GF grant

By Joy Baba-Yesufu

The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), has said it has judiciously utilized the over two million dollars ($2,305,695.03) grant from Global Fund’s Resilient and Sustainable Systems for Health (GF-RSSH) domiciled with the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA).
The Director General (DG) of NAFDAC, Prof Mojisola Adeyeye who made this known in Abuja while addressing journalist on the positive impact the funds has made in Nigeria within a period of three years as stated in the grant plans said several budget lines were implemented by NAFDAC during Grant Cycle 6.
Adeyeye said $36,965.00 was spent in strengthening NAFDAC role and capacity in pharmacovigilance and ADR monitoring and reporting also building the capacity of staff in Pharmacovigilance (PV).
She further said $8,684.21 of the funds was used to support NAFDAC to acquire a mobile app for ADR reporting and monitoring Pharmacovigilance activity for three years ending in 2023.
“Another impactful support from Global Funds was the support to NAFDAC for phased implementation of traceability of health products ($1,131,328.82 – BL136): This budget line has been instrumental in rolling out a phased implementation of traceability for health products in Nigeria.
“To ensure that the medicinal product is the right medicine which the label carries, Global Fund (BL36) supported three NAFDAC state offices with three field devices (Truscan ®️) for rapid on the spot check for product quality ($184,112.00): NAFDAC’s state offices have been further equipped with some devices for rapid screening of product quality, ensuring that unsafe and substandard products are swiftly identified and removed from circulation. Alongside this is the funding of the Yaba Central Drug Control Laboratory (CDCL)” she noted.
Ag. Executive Secretary, Country Coordinating mechanism for Global Funds, Ibrahim Tajudeen said the mechanism of monitoring the resources is robust and very transparent with so many systems ensuring that the resources were safeguarded.
He said the grant cycle implementation period was from 2021 to 2023 adding that Nigeria as a country has currently received additional nine hundred and thirty-three million US dollars’ resources because it has used the one that was allocated for the period mentioned above judiciously.
Tajudeen said the new allocation would have spent from January 2024 to December 2026 which will cut across HIV, Tuberculosis, Malaria and resilient system strengthening for health.