The Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, Prof Mojisola Adeyeye, has said the current climate crisis, characterized by unprecedented heatwaves, has posed a severe challenge to maintaining drug potency throughout the supply chain.
She stated this during the 3rd anniversary of the Institute for Advanced Medical Research and Training at the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Oyo State, on Thursday.
The event, themed “Preserving Potency: Navigating Heat Stress in Medicine Distribution and Usage,” was organised in collaboration with the NAFDAC.
Adeyeye, who was represented by NAFDAC’s Director of Laboratory Services (Drug), Inkem Ifudu, said, “The primary mandate of the regulatory body remains to safeguard public health by monitoring the distribution, use, importation, and exportation of medications, making the protection of active pharmaceutical ingredients from environmental degradation a front-burner issue for the agency.”
Delving into the clinical implications of the crisis, NAFDAC DG explained that heat stress behaves as a quiet destroyer of essential medications, leading to massive, unexpected treatment failures across healthcare settings.
