The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has warned fruit hawkers to desist from using calcium carbide to ripen fruits.
This is just as it cautioned the illegal hawking of drugs in the open market across the country, saying anyone arrested will be prosecuted thoroughly.
The agency said that many drug hawkers had knowingly or unknowingly become merchants of death who expose essential and life-saving medications to the vagaries of inclement weather which degrade the active ingredients of the medicine and turn them into poisons thus endangering human lives.
Speaking on the eradication of the menace in Lagos, NAFDAC’s Director General, Professor Mojisola Adeyeye, said there is an urgent need to stem the dangerous tide of drug hawking and ripening of fruits with calcium carbide.
According to her, the looming danger and health implications of these two nefarious activities by some unpatriotic and unscrupulous citizens in our country cannot be allowed to continue.
Speaking on “dangers of drug hawking and ripening of fruits with calcium carbide”, the NAFDAC DG said the existing collaboration with journalists towards mobilizing, educating, sensitizing, and concertizing will play a frontline role in the concerted efforts to eradicate the menace of drug hawking and ripening of fruits with calcium carbide in Nigeria.
The DG also noted that the menace of drug hawking poses a serious challenge to the healthcare delivery system in the country and this underscored NAFDAC’s resolute determination to totally eradicate the illicit trade.
“Many drug hawkers are knowingly or unknowingly merchants of death who expose essential and life-saving medicines to the vagaries of inclement weather which degrade the active ingredients of the medicine and turn them to poisons thus endangering human lives”
She stressed that most of the drugs sold by the illiterate and semi-literate drug hawkers are counterfeit, substandard or expired, and therefore do not meet the quality, safety, and efficacy requirement of regulated medicines”
“Drugs are sensitive life-saving commodities which should not be sold on the streets or inside motor parks or open markets just like any other article of trade”
“I wish to warn that any drug hawker arrested by NAFDAC will be prosecuted and will face a jail term. No offender will be spared from facing the full wrath of the Law,” Adeyeye said.
