The National Agency for Foods and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) safety test approval is not a stamp for verifying the efficacy of the producers’ claims.
Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, NAFDAC Director-General, made the clarification in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Abuja.
She said that there are different stages of approvals that a medical or food product must pass through before final certification for general use by consumers.
“Safety is the first phase of testing that a product goes through during the approval process.
“It involves microbial content and toxicity testing, pesticide residue, and toxicants evaluation.
“If the product meets the specifications, it can be approved as safe to use and get a listing status registration for two years,” she said.
Adeyeye explained that each stage of approval is made explicit for the consumers to discern from the labeling and warning assigned on the product by the NAFDAC.
“The applicant is expected to go the next phase which is clinical efficacy testing which is essentially doing a clinical trial on the product.
“That is why in the first phase, we put the disclaimer on the label that NAFDAC has not evaluated the product for the claim the client made.
“It is at this second stage when the clinical trial is done that the claim can be proved or refuted,” she added.
On the recent claim by a drug producer that it has got approval from NAFDAC, the director-general said: “NAFDAC approved the Paxherbal medicine for listing because it passed the safety test.
“But that does not mean it can do what the maker says it does – immune booster,“ she said.
- NAN