The Abia office of National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has seized 14 cartoons of expired amino acid drugs being re-validated in Aba, Abia.
The Chief Regulatory Officer of NAFDAC, Abia Office, Mr Olisa Okeke, made the development known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Aba on Wednesday.
He said that the product, named “Amino-fit”, with red colour containing 10 tablets in a sachet and with batch number, B00313D, was manufactured in April 2013 with March 2016 as expiry date.
Okeke, however, noted that the dealers decided to clean the original expiry date and write a new date on the pack after the drug had expired to enable them to continue selling it to unsuspecting people.
“Some days ago, we got a tip-off that some persons were re-writing (re validating) expiry dates on amino-acid drug “Amino Fit” with ox-blood red colour and they went to investigate it at 21, Abagana Street, Aba.
“I told them to find and mop up the re-validated drugs. On getting to the place, they met a lady who operates a hair salon in the building.
“While speaking to the lady, a young man suspiciously answered the question posed to the lady from an opening behind a locked gate.
“This led the team to look in different directions only to find the expired products being re-validated stacked inside a shop next to the salon lady through an opening by the door,” he said.
Okeke said that the team then forced the doors of the shop open and found the re-validated products inside.
According to him, the suspects escaped through the fence into another compound behind the building housing the shop.
Okeke, however, said that 14 cartons of the re-validated expired pharmaceutical product were carted away while the search for the culprits behind the deal continued.
He said that the premises had been sealed pending the time the culprits or the owner of the property would come to give account of what happened in the building.
Okeke also said the team recovered the screen-printing equipment that the suspects were using to re validate the products.
Okeke advised the public to be careful and check the expiry date on the products they bought to avoid buying expired products.
“Buyers of food and drug products around us now have to be extra-careful because unless you are very careful, and look very well, you will not see that they changed the expiry date,” he said.
NAN
