IN furtherance of regional efforts to check fake and substandard drugs, Nigeria and Cameroun have signed a cooperation agreement. Both countries signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) Wednesday that involves Nigeria providing some technical capacity to Cameroun’s anti-counterfeiting war, including training of the neighbouring country’s team and sharing Nigeria’s experiences and technological capacity with them.
The pact, officials of both countries say, is to enhance cooperation between both countries and to reinforce the application of standard and the respect of specification for all products, which come to Nigeria from Cameroun and those that go to Cameroun from Nigeria.
The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) signed on behalf of Nigeria, while the Cameroun Standard and Quality Agency represented that country.
Director General of Cameroun Standard and Quality Agency, Dr. Charls Booto n’Ngon, said at the ceremony: “Since Nigeria and Cameroun have been into cooperation for a long time, we want to reinforce the protection of our people. We have come to Abuja to sign a memorandum of understanding with NAFDAC for the benefit of our people. We will also make arrangements with our high commissioner for the Director General of NAFDAC, Dr. Paul Orhii, to come to Cameroun so that we can finalise everything to enhance this cooperation.”
According to him, “Our government intends to cooperate with Nigeria for the benefit of both countries. NAFDAC is a very big institution, which is recognised worldwide. Our agency was recently created by our Head of State and he wants us to share the NAFDAC experience so that Cameroun and Nigeria will both benefit.’
Orhii stressed that though Nigeria has not yet known the war against counterfeiting, it is making some remarkable progress.
His words: “Yours is a relatively younger agency. Ours has been there, but we are still learning. We share borders and a lot of products go from Nigeria to Cameroun and back from Cameroun to Nigeria. Therefore, it makes sense that we have to move together to make sure that these products that go across our borders are safe.
“Counterfeiting of products has been a major problem. The counterfeiters have devised ways because of the sophistication in printing technology and the globalisation of the counterfeiting business have become very highly complicated to deal with and one country alone is not enough to deal with this problem.
“That is why Nigeria is at the forefront of making sure that we come together to form international coalition to fight the menace of counterfeiting. If we come together as a region, we can form a block that can stop fake drugs from coming to our countries.”
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