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From Okey Sampson, Umuahia
Director General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Professor Mojisola Adeyeye has lamented the effect of drug hawking, saying it posed serious challenge to healthcare delivery system in the country.
Professor Adeyeye who made this known in her address at a one day “Media Sensitization Workshop on the Dangers of Drug Hawking and Ripening of Fruits with Calcium Carbide” for select journalists from Abia, Imo, Akwa Ibom and Cross River State held at Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, described drug hawkers as merchants of death who members of the public should not patronize.
Professor Adeyeye equally warned the public against consumption of fruits ripened with chemicals like calcium carbide and acetylene gas because of the grave health risks such fruits pose.
Represented by the Director, Chemical Evaluation and Research, Dr Leonard Onokporiola, Adeyeye informed that most of the drugs sold by “these semi-illiterate hawkers are fake and substandard”.
“Many drug hawkers are knowingly or unknowingly merchants of death who expose essential and Life Saving Medicines to the vagaries of inclement weather which degrade the active ingredients of the medicine and turn them to poisons thus endangering human lives.
“Most of the drugs sold by the illiterate and semi-literate drug hawkers are counterfeit, substandard or expired, and do not meet the quality, safety and efficacy requirement of regulated medicines.”
She accused drug hawkers as being the “major distributors and suppliers of narcotic medicines” to criminal networks such as armed bandits, insurgents, kidnappers and robbers.
Lamenting that drug hawkers constitute serious threat to national security, the NAFDAC boss solicited the cooperation of relevant security agencies and stakeholders as well as members of the public to clamp down on the perpetrators.
She gave tips on how to identify artificially-rippened fruits, informing that the practice is more pronounced with bananas, plantain and mango.
“They be ripe on the skin, the inside remains unripe. You can identify such artificially ripened fruits if you notice that the fruits are all yellow whereas the stem is dark, this is true especially with banana and plantain. In addition, naturally ripened fruits usually have brown or black spots, while those artificially ripened have traces of powdery substances and peel off quickly.”
She said that using carbide to rippen fruit renders the fruit useless and degrades the nutrients, thus making consumption of such fruit toxic and could cause cancer.
She assured that any fruit or drug hawker involved in these acts and arrested by NAFDAC will be prosecuted, and face a jail term.
South East/South South Zonal Coordinator of NAFDAC, Mr Chike Obiano, said consumption of fruits ripened with chemicals was a major cause of health complications in the country.
He appealed to the media to help sensitise the public on the grave dangers of the harmful practice of drug hawking and rippening of fruits with calcium carbide.
