NAFDAC Upgrades Med Safety App To Fight Fake And Unsafe Drugs In Nigeria

(NAFDAC. Photo by Daily Post)

The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has unveiled an enhanced version of its Med Safety App, as part of its ongoing efforts to improve the detection and reporting of counterfeit, substandard, and unsafe medical products across Nigeria.

In a statement issued by the agency's Director-General and Chief Executive Officer, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, NAFDAC described the upgraded digital platform as a tool designed to enable both healthcare professionals and ordinary members of the public to report suspected substandard or falsified medical products as well as adverse drug reactions in a quick, secure, and convenient manner.

The agency noted that the launch of the improved application represents a significant milestone in strengthening post-marketing surveillance and deepening public participation in safeguarding the quality, safety, and effectiveness of medicines and other medical products in the country.

NAFDAC emphasized that substandard and falsified medicines remain a serious public health concern, contributing to treatment failure, prolonged illness, antimicrobial resistance, disability, and preventable deaths.

Among the new features introduced in the upgraded app are a more intuitive user interface, simplified reporting procedures, improved feedback mechanisms, enhanced data management capabilities, and the ability for users to upload photographs and other relevant product details to support regulatory investigations.

Through the platform, users can flag a wide range of concerns, including medicines with tampered expiry dates, suspicious packaging, missing or fake NAFDAC registration numbers, poor product quality, unexpected treatment failure, and other signs of possible falsification.

The app also provides a channel for reporting adverse drug reactions, such as unexpected side effects or harmful responses linked to the use of specific medical products.

NAFDAC stated that information submitted through the app will support early detection of unsafe products, enable timely investigations and regulatory interventions, strengthen national medicine quality monitoring systems, and facilitate the removal of harmful products from circulation.

The agency further disclosed that public engagement since the introduction of the improved platform has already contributed to more effective medicine safety monitoring and faster identification of potential threats.

NAFDAC called on a broad range of stakeholders including healthcare professionals, pharmacists, physicians, nurses, patent and proprietary medicine vendors, community health workers, patients, caregivers, and the general public to download and actively use the application, noting that doing so will help ensure that only safe, effective, and quality-assured medical products remain accessible to Nigerians.