…Pushes Stronger Pharmacovigilance in Nigeria
The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control has called for urgent national action to strengthen pharmacovigilance systems and promote the rational use of medicines as part of efforts to safeguard patient safety and combat rising antimicrobial resistance in Nigeria.
Speaking during a Pharmacovigilance Sensitization Programme, the South-East Director of National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, Dr Festus C. Ukadike, warned that irrational medicine use remains a major public health threat with serious medical and economic consequences.
Ukadike, who represented the Director-General of National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, Mojisola Christianah Adeyeye, said medicines save lives when properly used but can become dangerous when abused, overused, or wrongly prescribed.
According to him, irrational medicine use manifests through self-medication, antibiotic abuse, polypharmacy, incorrect dosing, non-adherence to prescriptions, use of counterfeit medicines, and patronage of unauthorized drug vendors.
He noted that such practices contribute significantly to treatment failure, adverse drug reactions, prolonged illness, hospitalization, rising healthcare costs, disability, and avoidable deaths.
NAFDAC Warns Against Antibiotic Misuse and AMR
The NAFDAC South-East Director identified antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as one of the gravest consequences of irrational medicine use, stressing that the misuse and overuse of antibiotics have accelerated the emergence of resistant microorganisms.
“This means that infections previously treatable with common antibiotics are becoming increasingly difficult and expensive to manage,” Ukadike stated.
He warned that failure to address antimicrobial resistance could reverse decades of medical progress and expose humanity to severe health risks.
Importance of Pharmacovigilance in Nigeria
Ukadike emphasized that pharmacovigilance — the science of detecting, assessing, understanding, and preventing adverse drug effects — remains critical to ensuring medicine safety even after products have been approved and released into the market.
He explained that no medicine is entirely free from side effects, but effective pharmacovigilance systems help healthcare professionals and patients identify harmful drug reactions early and report them appropriately.
According to him, a single adverse drug reaction report could save thousands of lives.
The NAFDAC official disclosed that the agency continues to strengthen post-marketing surveillance, safety monitoring systems, adverse drug reaction reporting mechanisms, risk communication strategies, and public sensitization campaigns across Nigeria.
He added that the agency has established reporting channels for healthcare professionals and members of the public to report medicine-related problems and adverse drug reactions.
Responsibilities of Healthcare Professionals and Patients
Addressing stakeholders at the sensitization programme, Ukadike said the responsibility for rational medicine use must be shared among healthcare professionals, regulators, institutions, and patients.
He urged doctors to prescribe medicines based on clinical evidence and patient-specific considerations, while pharmacists were advised to ensure proper dispensing practices and provide adequate medication counselling.
He also charged nurses to maintain vigilance in medicine administration and patient monitoring, while hospital administrators were encouraged to strengthen institutional pharmacovigilance structures through continuous professional training.
Patent medicine vendors and community healthcare providers, he said, must operate strictly within approved regulatory standards.
Patients were equally advised to avoid self-medication, adhere strictly to prescriptions, avoid sharing medicines, complete prescribed doses, and promptly report unusual side effects.
Economic Impact of Irrational Medicine Use
Ukadike stressed that irrational medicine use has enormous economic implications, especially in developing economies like Nigeria.
According to him, families waste scarce resources on inappropriate treatments while healthcare institutions become overburdened managing preventable complications arising from medicine misuse.
He noted that productivity also declines due to prolonged illness and rising treatment costs.
“Investment in pharmacovigilance and rational medicine use is not merely a healthcare necessity; it is an economic and developmental imperative,” he said.
NAFDAC Recommends Measures to Strengthen Medicine Safety
To strengthen pharmacovigilance and rational medicine use in Nigeria, the NAFDAC South-East Director recommended:
Continuous professional education for healthcare workers on rational prescribing and medicine safety, expansion of public awareness campaigns against self-medication and antibiotic misuse, increased adverse drug reaction reporting across healthcare facilities, integration of digital technologies into pharmacovigilance reporting systems, stronger collaboration among regulatory agencies, healthcare institutions, academia, professional bodies, and civil society organizations as well as intensified enforcement against counterfeit and substandard medicines and promotion of research and data-driven decision-making in medicine safety.
He reiterated that patient safety must remain central to healthcare delivery, stressing that every prescription, medicine dispensed, and treatment administered should prioritize patient wellbeing.
Ukadike further described medicines as symbols of “hope, healing, and trust,” adding that healthcare stakeholders must uphold that trust through responsible medicine use and effective safety monitoring.
The state Coordinator of WHO, Dr Adaeze Ugwu, said that the organisation would continue to support NAFDAC in the agency’s resolve to strengthen food and healthcare in the country.
The Chairman, Enugu State Traditional Rulers’ Council, Igwe Samuel Asadu, commended NAFDAC for the workshop, and urged the agency to put more effort tiwards curbing the sale of fake medicines in the hinterlands.
Asadu said that pharmacovigilance was needed more in the hinterlands to stop people peddling fake medicines and “selling outright chalk as medicine in villages in the state”.
He gave the commitment of royal fathers in the state towards providing necessary support to NAFDAC to check peddlers of fake medicines “as we see our people die due to their activities”.
Also, the Chairman, Nigerian Association of Patent and Proprietory Medicine Dealers, Dr Oliver Ezemba, urged everybody to get concerned about the issues of AMR and ADR to guarantee quality medicines for everyone.
Ezemba called on Nigerians to imbibe the habit of reporting any irregularities observed while using a medicine to NAFDAC for proper investigation, “which would serve the benefit of many Nigerians using same medicine”.
Some of the participants made observations and sought clarifications on grey areas and promised to report any suspectable AMR or ADR case through the NAFDAC’s Med Safety Mobile App.
Highlights of the event included a presentation on the “Need for Effective Pharmacovigilance by All”, delivered by two agency’s officials, Mr Chidi Uche and Mrs Ogechi Udeh.
The sensitization programme brought together government representatives, healthcare professionals, traditional rulers,leaders of religious bodies, pharmaceutical stakeholders, members of the National Association of Patent and Proprietary Medicine Dealers, and media practitioners to discuss strategies for improving medicine safety and public health outcomes in Nigeria.
