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No doubt, the growing problem of counterfeit drugs poses great risks to healthcare systems in developing nations, including Nigeria. Little wonder that the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that counterfeit drug prevalence rates fall between 10 to 30 percent in the developing world; compared to 1 percent or less in industralised world.
Thus, in a bid to arrest this ugly trend, the National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) is set to deploy Mobile Authentication Service (MAS) for drugs in the country.
Speaking to stakeholders in the health sector, including pharmaceutical importers at the agency’s Oshodi office in Lagos recently, Paul Orhii, director general, NAFDAC, said the need to ensure that Nigerians access quality, efficacious and safe regulated products is of paramount importance to NAFDAC. Orhii disclosed that the anti-counterfeiting technology platform being deployed is in line with the strategies and policy is aimed at reducing the prevalence of fake, counterfeit and sub-standard regulated and sub-standard regulated products in Nigeria.
“Using technology from Sproxil, Biofem and NAFDAC, the MAS pilot programme involves packaging of drugs which will include a scratch card placed on each of the drug packages from the point of manufacture for the consumer with six labels, each of which hides a code. Patients are to send these codes for free through short message service (SMS) from MTN, GLO and Zain networks to 38353. Shortly after sending the message, the patient will receive a reply stating if the medicine is genuine or fake,†Orhii revealed.
The NAFDAC DG disclosed that currently, the scratch cards are only included with packs of Glucophage (metformin) but the agency is working with pharmaceutical companies and health stakeholders to expand the service with the sole intent of addressing drugs at risk of counterfeiting.
According to Femi Soremekun, managing director, Biofem Pharmacy, Biofem has agreed to make one of its products available as ‘guinea pig’ for the pilot project. He pointed out that the company’s diabetes drug, Glucophage, was tested and serves as the first drug in the country to be confirmed through MAS verification for authenticity.
“The system runs on Spoxil’s MAS technology. This is based on asymmetric encryption, the same technology that powers trillions of bank transfers and e-commerce worldwide. We choose this drug (Glucophage) because we felt this is one of the drugs that have been discovered to be counterfeited. However, patients seeking to authenticate their Glucophage will also receive a tip for managing diabetes with each validation message. This is intended to keep patients informed about latest discoveries in diabetes care management,†Soremekun disclosed.
Meanwhile, the director general disclosed to the public that the new service which is based on technology from a USA firm, Sproxil Incorporated, whose Nigerian subsidiary has developed the solution with NAFDAC and BIOFEM, is not available for all drugs in the country yet. He however assured that with the success on the pilot drug, all other drugs will soon enjoy the same service.
This service is to be carried out with no extra cost to consumers and will enable them assist the agency to detect any pharmacy dispensing counterfeit drugs. Such customers would only need to call the attention of NAFDAC to any shop where counterfeit drugs are being sold if response from the SMS indicates the drug is fake/counterfeit.