OPERATIVES of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, have uncovered an uncompleted building in Azagba-Ogwashi, Aniocha South Local Government Area, Delta where a couple relabel and repackage expired injectables.
They identified the expired injectables to include gentamicin 280 milligram, which they said had been banned over 10 years ago, chloroquine phosphate 332mg 5 milligram; egometrine injection and unidentified injectables wrapped in wrappers.
Deputy Director in charge of NAFDAC Investigation and Enforcement Federal Task Force for South South and South East, Mr. Babatunji Omoyeni, disclosed that some of the injectables had expired as far back as 2018
He said the wife of the suspect had been arrested and is in custody.
Addressing newsmen at NAFADC- Investigation & Enforcement Office, Asaba, Omoyeni said: “We got the information and we swiftly moved into action. The house in Isselle-Azagba is an uncomplicated building of six flats. The suspect and the family, especially the wife are staying in the place.
“We entered, it looked ordinary. Everywhere you just see children playing around and actually, she was plaiting her hair with one of her friends. Under the chairs in wrappers were injectables. Some boys were inside the rooms; l think they had worked overnight and were sleeping and the moment they saw us they jumped the fence and ran out.
“One by one, we pulled out what we saw in the place and one of the items recovered was a 100 litre drum where they put chemicals to wipe off information of expired injectables. The vials are cleaned up and later they will put date marking as the wish.
“The one that baffled us the vials that expired as far back as 2018. They will wipe them up, put another date and then rebrand in cartons, package them and take them to Ogbogwu Market, Onitsha.
On his part, NAFDAC Director South East Zone, Dr Martins A. Iluyomade described the act as worse than Boko Haram, lamenting how someone “will use chemical to clean up the bottle, then relabel it in any name they want and sell it to the public.
“Before you take injection, there are serious that you are trying to treat and then what you are taking is wrongly labeled because what is inside is not what is labelled.
“The problem is that you don’t even know what is inside the injectables you are taking apart from the fact that they are expired. We keep hearing of treatment failure; people go to the hospitals and the issue gets worse because people are taking wrong medication.”
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