The Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, has said that the COVID-19 pandemic aggravated the challenge posed by substandard Personal Protective Equipment.

Adeyeye was represented by Director, Narcotics and Controlled Substances, NAFDAC, Umar Musa, at the continuation of the nationwide sensitization programme in Benin on Thursday.

She said that it has become apparent to let the public know that unregulated goods and products are harmful to health.

She said, “It is clear that the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic has aggravated the problem with the challenge posed by substandard and falsified Personal Protective Equipment in Nigeria. The campaign would address the public health challenges like the dangers of buying medicines from hawkers instead of from only licensed pharmacies and medicine stores.

“The sensitisation effort would also look at the abuse of Codeine and self-medication especially among youths, the dangerous effects of using Kerosene tanker to load groundnut oil, the dangerous practice of using potassium bromate to bake bread and the use of Azo-dyes in palm oil which causes cancer.

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“Other things the campaign will also address are the dangers of using sniper to preserve any type of food or to keep flies away from meat, dangers of transfat and consumption of excessive oil, use of formalin on food and its associated health hazards and low level of exclusive breastfeeding practice by lactating mothers and its associated health hazards.

“Also, the dangers of wrong use of pesticides and insecticides, wrong use of chemicals and its hazardous effects, as well as the problem of antimicrobial resistance arising from animal meat, will also be on the front burner as the sensitisation train moves all over the country,” she added.

The NAFDAC boss said that the Public Awareness Campaign is one of the veritable regulatory mechanisms put in place by the agency to promote and protect the health of Nigerians.

She noted that the key objective of this sensitization programme is to intensify and expand the scope of our informal and formal behaviour change communication strategies to reach the vulnerable communities, especially at the grassroots.