The Director General, National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Professor Mojisola Adeyeye, Thursday, raised concerns over low level of exclusive breast feeding practice amongst lactating mothers in Nigeria.
This is just as the agency listed 12 public health challenges requiring urgent attention.
The agency also observed that the advent of COVID-19 has aggravated the use of “substandard and falsified protective personal equipment (PPEs)” amongst Nigerians.
Speaking in Iloriin at the flag off of the first phase of its sensitisation campaign designed to hold in eight selected states across the country, professor Adeyeye urged lactating mothers to practice exclusive breasfeeding for six months to prevent many illnesses that may cut 9the lives of their children short .
For instance, the agency’s boss, represented by it’s north central director, Mrs Bolaji’ Abayomi said “one of the benefits of exclusive breast feeding is that it will prevent diarrheou which kill many children before age two”.
Highlighting prevailing public health challenges in the country, the NAFDAC boss cautioned Nigerians against ” dangers of buying medicines from hawkers” saying, “Patients are to buy medicines from only licensed Pharmacies and Medicine Stores”.
She warned that “abuse of Codeine and self-medication especially among youths” is on rise calling for a concerted effort to nip it on the bud.
Professor Adeyeye decried the “dangerous” effects of using Kerosene tanker to load groundnut oil even as she warned bakers to desist from “dangerous practice of using potassium bromate to bake bread.”
Speaking further, the NAFDAC boss urged market women in particular to join the agency in it’s campaing against the “use of Azo-dyes in Palm oil which according to her,” causes cancer”.
She regretted that despite the agency’s campaign against the use of snippers for the presevation of any form of food items, the practice is still “alarming”.
The NAFDAC boss cautioned against “dangers of transfat and consumption of excessive oil, use of formalin on food and its associated health hazards.”
She charged farmers to apply moderation in the use of pesticides and insecticides warning that wrong use of chemicals and its hazardous effects is causing cancer in human beings .
Adeyeye said contrary to speculations, that many people who fell ill don’t get over quickly because of use of fake drugs, the agency boss attributed such condition to problem of “microbial resistance arising from animal meat”.
NAFDAC’ s director public enlightement, Abubakar Jimoh, and project consultant, Lanre Onilu, said the public elighment were designed to arm Nigeians with the right information that would help safe guard their lives and promote healthy living.
“Many people are coming down with a lot of illnesses because they don’t have enough information,” Jimoh said.
