The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, weekend said it is ready to trace and track the COVID-19 vaccines once it is available in the country even as it gave awards to over 132 staff and retires across the federation.
Among those recognised include Deputy Director, Mrs. Christiana Obizikwor.
Disclosing this during the Agency’s 2019/2020 Staff Recognition Awards and Sent Forth for Retirees held virtually nationwide, the Director-General of the Agency, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye boosted that the Agency was the second in Africa to adopt traceability on track and trace on the supply chain, targeted at ensuring that the products consumed by citizens are the safe and the same product that left the manufacturers’ site.
“We are using this for COVID-19 vaccines when they come. NAFDAC is leading on the continent in terms of ensuring that the COVID- 19 vaccines can be tracked and traced to the patients and also, the advent of adverse reactions can be monitored.
“It is because we are changing the way we do things and the way we think because we want to safeguard the lives of our people and without our staff, we cannot do it and I am very proud of all of our staff.” While noting that the Agency was a leading regulator in Africa driven by international standards and best practices, she said in the last three years, digitalisation of regulatory activities, including the deployment of electronic a platform for online registration and decentralization of registration processes was established.
“Our new normal started three years ago when we started the quality management system that now makes us to focus more on the customers, the image of the organisation in order to ensure that we are a standard operating procedure-driven organisation. This led us to achieve ISO 9001 in 2019 June. We moved on to the global benchmarking where we adopted international best practices and we are still adopting international best practices.
“With regards to the establishment of the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) global benchmarking and adoption of international best practices, we want to get to maturity level three so that Nigeria can manufacture her own vaccines, and we are all working on this every day.
Further, she added that achieving the ISO 9001 in June 2019, the world’s most recognised Quality Management System (QMS) standard, places the country in good standing to strive to get to maturity level three, which enables the country to manufacture its own vaccines.
Adeyeye explained that NAFDAC’s Staff Recognition Award Ceremony for 2019/2020, was aimed at recognizing serving and retired staff for excellence and dedication.
She added that the agency was upgrading the agency’s laboratories to international standards using equipment that are compliant with ISO 17025, adding that the laboratories are changing very rapidly with improvements in new equipment and supplies. We have also gotten a new lab – the Yaba Biologies and Vaccines Lab accredited for the first time. And our two other labs will be accredited very soon.” Among those recognised include the Deputy Director, Mrs Christiana Obizikwor.
Vanguard