NAFDAC trains physicians on adverse drug reaction

The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has trained members of the Pharmaceutical Council of Nigeria (PCN), Enugu state council on how they could play significant role in enlightening Nigerians on the need to report adverse drug reaction.

The Director General of NAFDAC, Dr. Paul Orhii represented by the Chief regulatory officer of NAFDC, Elemuwa Uchenna, said since no drug or medicine was completely free from ADR (adverse drug reaction), it became imperative to train the physicians who were custodians of medicine on the need to monitor ADR.

The DG noted that NAFDAC, as an agency constituted by law to regulate and control drug safety in the country, Pharmacovigilance unit of the agency was being vigilant and monitored drug safety.

“Pharmacovigilance is the science and activities relating to the knowledge, detection, assessment and prevention of adverse effects or any drug-related problem”, he stated.

While explaining that the data generated from reporting ADR was not meant to institute legal action against anybody, the NAFDAC boss said “we want to generate country based report instead of depending on data from outside the country without empirical evidence”.

In an interview with journalists, the South-East director, Pharmacovigilance centre, Dr. Franklin Onuoha, a consultant physician with the Federal Medical Center Owerri said report of ADR in the zone was very poor.

Also speaking in an interview, the chairman of PCN, Enugu state, Festus Ejiekpe applauded the training, which he said would enhance their relationship with patients, stressing that ADR was prevalent because of self medication.

Over 50 pharmacists attended the training.