Senate summons health, trade ministers over guidelines on syringes

The Senate Committee on Health has summoned the Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire , his Trade and Investment counterpart, Niyi Adebayo and the Director-General of National Agency for Food and Drug Administration (NAFDAC), Professor Mojisola Adeyeye , over the manufacturing, importation, and policy guidelines for syringes in Nigeria.

The summon was issued Monday by the chairman of the committee, Senator Ibrahim Yahaya Oloriegbe (APC Kwara Central ) during a public hearing on “The need to regulate the manufacturing, importation and use of syringes and needles to protect the lives and safety of Nigerians as well as the economy of the country.”

At the hearing, members of the panel expressed displeasure over failure of Ministry of Trade and Investment to implement the Backward Integration Policy (BIP) on local production of syringes five years after it was validated.

They also slammed NAFDAC for licensing companies in India and China to import syringes into the country.

Specifically, the chairman of the committee said: “You can’t keep licensing agents outside Nigeria to import syringes, while local firms are dying. There is no complexity in the production of syringes”.

He lamented that despite the capacity of the local firms to meet the market demands, an estimated over 1 billion units per annum of syringe and needles are being imported into the country making the country to lose huge foreign exchange.

The committee asked Trade and Investment minister to appear before it on April 15 to explain reasons the Backward Integration Policy (BIP), which was validated in 2017, has not been presented to Federal Executive Council for approval.

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