The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, has faulted claims that practically all paracetamol drugs in the nation are under the suggested dosages.
The Chief General of NAFDAC, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, talked on Monday while newsmen on discoveries made by the organization following a distribution which guaranteed that a large portion of the paracetamol tablets in the nation are under-dosed.
According to her, based on a scientific response to recent reports suggesting widespread under dosing of paracetamol tablets in Nigeria, NAFDAC conducted a comprehensive testing of tablets sampled from different pharmacy outlets, to investigate the claims.
“As a Scientist and Professor of Pharmaceutical Manufacturing and Drug Evaluation for 30 years, the publication gave me a great concern on the lack of responsibility regarding the impact of the unscientific release on the Nigerian society.
“The results of the laboratory testing are ready after paracetamol tablets from 13 different local manufacturers were sampled from Lagos and Abuja pharmacy outlets,” she said.
Saying that parameters, including uniformity of mass, average weight, friability, hardness, identification and disintegration time that were not part of the subject in question, were also tested.
“Basic scientific facts such as the range of the concentrations of the standard curve solutions (0.01 to 0.05) being lower than the solution test samples (0.1) further invalidates all the analysis because the anticipated test solution concentration should fall within the calibration concentration range,” Adeyeye added.
According to the NAFCAC boss, the pharmaceutical manufacturing sector in the country strives to maintain and enhance the quality of products to align with the agency’s quality culture.
Adeyeye reassured Nigerians of the agency’s commitment to public health and safety.
