The Federal Government has recalled 2, 405,724 million bottles of cough syrup containing codeine to stem the abuse of codeine and other substances in the country.
Mrs. Boade Akinola, the Director of Media and Public Relations of the Ministry of Health, made this known in a statement on Sunday in Abuja.
According to the statement, Prof. Isaac Adewole, the Minister of Health, said the cough syrup bottles were recalled after a recent audit trail of the substance carried out by the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC).
The minister spoke in Abuja while receiving the final report of the stakeholders’ committee set up by the ministry to address the worrisome menace.
According to him, “The audit trail and subsequent recall of the substance was part of the recommendations of the 22-man committee drafted from a broad spectrum of the health sector to collaborate with relevant agencies as part of pharmacovigilance and renewed effort to actively monitor drug distribution channels and sanitise the system.”
The minister said the committee was set up as a follow-up to the statement issued by the ministry on the temporary ban of codeine production and distribution and a further directive for NAFDAC to convene a committee of stakeholders to chart the way forward.
The committee has the following as members: Director-General, NAFDAC, Professor Christiana M. Adeyeye (Chairman); Chairman, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Muhammad Mustapha Abdullah; Registrar, Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN), Elijah Mohammed; Director, Food and Drugs Services (FMOH), Mr. Moshood Lawal; President, Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN), Ahmed I. Yakasai; Executive Secretary, Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Group of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (PMG-MAN), Dr. Okey Akpa, among others.
The minister said the report involved 87% of the manufacturers.
The Federal Government had, on May 1, banned the production and importation of codeine as an active pharmaceutical ingredient for cough syrup preparations to check abuse of the substance among Nigerians.
The minister directed NAFDAC to stop the issuance of permits for the importation of codeine, and also directed the Pharmaceutical Council of Nigeria (PCN) and NAFDAC to supervise the recall of all codeine-containing cough syrups nationwide.
The Federal Government also banned the sale of cough syrup containing-codeine without prescription.
