The National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) says it has started surveillance visits to cold rooms and pharmaceutical stores across Kaduna state.
The agency’s Chief Regulatory Officer, North-West zone, Mrs. Falinyi Benjamin, disclosed this in an interview with newsmen on Thursday in Kaduna.
Benjamin said that the visit was to ascertain the level of compliance with the agency’s guidelines regarding the operations of cold rooms and pharmaceutical stores.
“The visit is to ensure that they are maintaining good storage practices, especially with the recent outage of power in the North, especially as regards to temperature control,’’ she said.
She also stated that so far, all the facilities visited that engaged in the distribution of frozen items or required cold storage are operating in accordance with good storage and distribution practices.
“We have visited the state primary healthcare cold room, Kaduna North cold room, Narayi and Zakari ISA cold rooms and they have solar panels, and their temperature is within the range of between 2 and 8 degrees.
“Those engaged in frozen foods like seafood, fish, chicken etc. have also complied with good storage practices and also have backup sources of power supply,’’ she asserted.
She said food items, drugs, vaccines and other antigens were in a proper storage condition, and also assured continuous monitoring by the agency to ensure compliance to laid down guidelines, standards and operating procedures with particular emphasis on Good Hygiene Practices (GHP).
Benjamin also encouraged operators to ensure that various categories of products, particularly food items, drugs and vaccines are stored according to distribution guidelines.
“It is not just putting all gadgets in place but ensuring the thermometer that will show the equipment they are using is in the right storage condition in the morning and evening.
“We want the consumers to be served with appropriate food items that are stored according to health practices in order to rule out some of the health challenges that will come up when such products are consumed,’’ she encouraged.