Orhii soaring amidst challenges

By Omoba Kenneth Aigbegbele

National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) under the watch of Dr. Paul Orhii, has recorded tremendous successes in the fight against drug counterfeiting and other substandard products, which have given Nigerians increasing access to good quality, safe and efficacious drugs, wholesome foods, good equality packaged water, safe medical devices and ensuring the safety of other regulated products. The mandate of NAFDAC involves: to control, regulate the manufacture, importation, exportation, distribution, advertisement, safe use of foods, drugs, cosmetics, medical devices and packaged water, including all drinks referred to as regulated products. Dr. Orhii was poised to redefine his office and put NAFDAC on the map of top-notch regulators across the globe.

The Director General of NAFDAC is globally recognized and acknowledged to have broad, versatile and good knowledge of food and drugs. A certified physician and a holder of Ph.D in neuro-psycho-pharmacology, a biomedical scientist with vast experience in drug testing, experimental medicine, having conducted cutting-edge biomedical researches into new medicines in Russia with more than 10 years cognate experience at the University of Texas, Health Science Centre at San Antonio. Dr. Orhii was licensed by the Supreme Court of Texas, to practise as an attorney at law with emphasis in pharmaceutical litigation. All these knowledge and experiences were brought to bear on NAFDAC and its management and Nigerians are the one enjoying and reaping the benefits of a professional at the helms of affairs.

Under the stewardship of Dr. Orhii, NAFDAC had broken a lot of barriers, milestones and had been adjudged as one vibrant government agency adding value to Nigeria and giving Nigeria a good public image internationally with regards to best practices and standards. The management under him, has diligently deployed cutting-edge technologies to eliminate the incidence of counterfeit medicines and have achieved tremendous results. NAFDAC laboratories have gained two international accreditation by the international standard organization (1S0 17025) and the World Health Organization respectively. In consonance with its patriotic drive, since inception NAFDAC, in 1993, he ensured that the Nigerian pharmaceutical companies attained World Health Organization (WHO) pre-qualification with its attendant huge economic benefits.

In order to attain its lofty height, the zero tolerance and war against counterfeiting is one of the major challenges faced by the regulatory agencies across the world. According to WHO, a counterfeit medicine is one which is deliberately and fraudulently mislabeled with respect to identity. Counterfeiting can apply to both branded and generic products and may include products with the correct ingredients, with wrong ingredients, without active ingredients, with insufficient ingredients or fake packaging.

According to survey and studies, there has been a positive trend which shows a progressive decrease in the incidence of counterfeit medicines in Nigeria, in 2001 counterfeits incidence stood at 40% as against 16.7% in 2005. The national survey on quality of medicines, shows that counterfeits stood at 6.4% in 2013. The Tuscan survey conducted by NAFDAC across 29 states, including Federal Capital Territory, FCT, percentages stood at 93.6% passed while the percentage failure is 6.4% accordingly. However, the percentage of anti-malarial samples that passed was 80.4% while the percentage failure was 19.6%. This is an improvement on the figures obtained from the study on the quality of anti-malaria in sub-Saharan Africa conducted by WHO.
The agency had introduced cutting-edge anti-counterfeiting technology to drive home its message of standardization of products in Nigeria. These technologies include TRUSCAN, Mobile Authentication System, Deep infrared, Mini lab and Radio Frequency Identification devices for detection of counterfeit drugs and medicines. Today, to the credit of NAFDAC, Nigeria in being celebrated worldwide as a global leader for its success in using these innovative approaches to fight counterfeit medicines, countries like, Uganda, Kenya and Sierra Leone had sent regulatory officers to train in our laboratories and under-study the use of our technologies.

In capacity building, Dr. Orhii, knowing full well the importance of this very vital area had given its top priority through human resource capacity development, upgrade of laboratories and the continuous training of officers to strengthen its regulatory capacity. NAFDAC had supported local pharmaceutical sector by working to build appropriate capacity to produce drugs locally that meet international best standards and reducing the dependence on imports. The staff of NAFDAC has undergone over 7,000 local and international trainings between 2009 and 2015 and more than 7,988 overseas GMP inspections have been carried out by the agency in the last few years.

In order to extend its activities beyond our shores and make it a global player and agency as encapsulated in the blueprint of Dr. Orhii, he entered into international collaborations with India, China, USA, Argentina, among others, and worked with organs like the WHO, UNICEF, DFID, GAIN and MI in order to enhance the effective and efficiency of NAFDAC activities across board, thereby making it relevant in the scheme of things globally.
Under the NAFDAC leadership drive to improve its infrastructure development, the completion and commissioning of the ultra-modern state of the art regional laboratory complex in Agulu, Anambra State, was a major milestone.

The acquisition of a new befitting building for Lagos administrative office, the structural face-lift, refurbishment and upgrade of NAFDAC Headquarters in Abuja, Yaba, Oshodi and Maiduguri laboratories, while two of them have been accredited by WHO. Consequently, the obsolete infrastructure, vehicles, equipment and laboratories gulp huge part of the budget, not to mention the shortage of operational vehicles and the withdrawal of NAFDAC from the Nigerian ports, which to stakeholders, is a big mistake.

Dr. Orhii has taken these challenges in its strides and has continued to refocus the agency by adopting a multifaceted, diverse and well-coordinated anti-counterfeiting strategy that transcends local, national and international boundaries. Like, he echoed a few weeks back, that the agency has refocused and keyed into the vision and mission of President Muhammadu Buhari, by taking the agency to the comity of global health players that in spite of the daunting challenges ahead, the transparency at NAFDAC needs to be sustained, the successes need to be consolidated while uncompleted projects need to be completed.
Orhii has received several awards from within and outside the country too numerous to mention among which are the Kwame Nkrumah leadership award and the Blue Ribbon award by UNICEF.
Aigbegbele, a consummate brand strategist, Executive Secretary, Citizens Watch Nigeria  and a political affairs analyst, wrote from Abuja .Email-

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