The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has reiterated that it is dangerous to use sniper and other insecticides to preserve foods.
The agency said the warning became necessary because its findings had shown that many Nigerians were still using these dangerous chemicals to keep pests or flies from their food or raw meat.
Its Director-General, Prof Moji Adeyeye, gave the warning in Lagos during the ongoing campaign on the various infractions that impact negatively on Nigerians’ health as well as the health care delivery system.
She said it was common knowledge that Nigeria has a preponderant share of the global problems arising from after-effects of consuming falsified medical products and unwholesome food items.
Adeyeye, who was represented by the agency’s Director of Ports Inspection, Prof Samson Adebayo, noted that the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic has aggravated the problem with the crisis posed by substandard and falsified personal protective equipment (PPEs)
“The key objective of this sensitisation is to expand the scope of our informal and formal behavioural change communication strategies to reach the vulnerable communities, especially at the grassroots.
‘’Dissemination of food and drug safety information is an important aspect of our regulatory work.
“These campaign themes intend to address the following public health challenges such as dangers of buying medicines from hawkers. Patients are to buy medicines from only licensed pharmacies and medicine stores.
‘’We are also looking at the abuse of codeine and self-medication, especially among youths; the dangerous effects of using kerosene tanker to load groundnut oil; the dangerous practice of using potassium bromate to bake bread; the use of azo-dyes in palm oil which causes cancer; dangers of transfat and consumption of excessive oil and the use of formalin on food and its associated health hazards.,” she said.
