By Seun Ibiyemi
The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has launched a 600-member pharmacists’ reserve force to expand its regulatory presence across Nigeria’s markets, pharmacies, patent medicine stores and primary healthcare centres.
The initiative, known as the Pharmacists Reserve Volunteer Programme (PRVP), brings together qualified pharmacists already working in different fields from the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
The Director-General of NAFDAC, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, said the programme was designed to strengthen the agency’s ability to respond quickly to threats involving substandard and falsified medicines, unwholesome products and drug abuse.
Speaking during the inauguration and oath-taking ceremony, Adeyeye said the volunteers would serve as a readily deployable pool of trained professionals who could be mobilised during emergencies, product recalls and suspected circulation of fake medicines.
She said the programme would expose the pharmacists to practical regulatory activities, including pharmacovigilance, compliance monitoring, quality assurance, data collection and public sensitisation.
Adeyeye said the agency’s objective was to ensure that its regulatory activities reach communities rather than remain concentrated at its headquarters, laboratories and ports of entry.
“Regulation that lives only in the capital cannot protect a nation of more than two hundred million people,” she said.
The NAFDAC boss said her ambition was for every state to eventually have a standing pool of trained, vetted and mobilisable pharmacists working with the agency’s state offices.
According to her, the volunteers could be deployed to hard-to-reach communities or called upon during emergencies involving suspected falsified medicines and other products capable of endangering public health.
Adeyeye charged the pharmacists to maintain the highest standards of integrity, discipline and confidentiality.
She warned that regulators could encounter inducements and pressure designed to compromise their duties, urging the volunteers to reject such offers.
“The moment a regulator can be bought, the public loses its only protection,” she said.
She also warned the volunteers against disclosing confidential information obtained during inspections and investigations, stressing that such information belongs to NAFDAC and the Nigerian public.
The pharmacists were further advised to study regulatory guidelines, document their activities properly and respect the communities where they would operate.
The Coordinator of the PRVP and Director of Narcotics and Controlled Substances, Dr Momodu Omamegbe Rametu, said the initiative had grown from a recent call for expression of interest into a national reserve of 600 pharmacists.
He described the programme as a backup system that would provide additional manpower for regulatory operations, post-marketing surveillance, citizen participation and drug demand-reduction campaigns.
The Coordinator of the NAFDAC Training School, Dr Tunde Sigbeku, said the volunteers would undergo training covering post-market surveillance, pharmacovigilance, antimicrobial resistance prevention, inspection and enforcement, narcotics and controlled substances, drug abuse awareness, intelligence gathering and research.
Sigbeku described the programme as a major addition to NAFDAC’s regulatory capacity, saying the agency would now have a nationwide reserve of pharmacists who could support its fight against fake and substandard products.
Adeyeye urged NAFDAC directors and state coordinators to take ownership of the volunteers, mentor them and deploy them meaningfully to strengthen regulatory activities at the grassroots.
She formally declared the Pharmacists Reserve Volunteer Programme inaugurated, charging the 600 pharmacists to place the safety of Nigerians above every other consideration.
