National Food and Drug Administration and Control Agency at its Lagos office,has introduce a solution meant to be the silver bullet against the monstrous fake drug business in the country.
The data collected from a three-month trial of the Mobile Authentication Service, an SMS-based solution implemented by Sproxil Incorporated will also be discussed at a meeting with drugs manufacturers and retailers.
The innovative technology has been described as most suitable for checkmating fake drugs in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the counterfeit drugs business is estimated to be worth about seventy-five billion dollars, because it utilises the ubiquitous mobile phone platform.
The model is as simple as a consumer walking into a pharmaceutical store to buy drugs, which would have a scratch panel.
The consumer scratches the panel and sends the code on it to a well-advertised number through SMS and A confirmation message will be sent back confirming the genuineness or otherwise of the drug, If the drug is counterfeited, the consumer is expected to inform the Agency.
This model, which will also be effective against all forms of counterfeited and sub-standard products, will turn consumers to an independent army of anti-counterfeit officials, one as big as the entire Nigerian populace, if implemented efficiently.
The document, was prepared by a national committee inaugurated by the Agency Director General,Paul Orhii, in June last year.
The committee consisted of representatives of the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers of Nigeria, Nigerian Representatives of Overseas Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and mPedigree, the company marketing the product.
The committee submitted its report, Deployment of National Electronic Anti-Counterfeiting Platform for Regulated Products in Nigeria, in September last year.
Thereafter, Biofem agreed to use its highly counterfeited product, glucophage, as a guinea pig and in February, the Agency announced a trial project, to be implemented by Sproxil.
The feasibility of the guideline document requires several partnership agreement and understanding among several components of the design including telecommunication companies, drug manufacturing companies, Information Technology Company and the Agency.
However, Biofem-Spiroxil partnership has within a shorter period, produced an implementation platform for the technology and the trial has received positive feedback from industry stakeholders.
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