The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has rolled out a campaign against public health challenges in the Southsouth.

Inaugurating the campaign in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, NAFDAC Director General Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye warned the public against patronising substandard and falsified COVID-19 Personnel Protective Equipment (PPE).

Adeyeye, represented by the NAFDAC Director, Southsouth, Subulade Isijola,  identified some of the major health challenges as dangers posed by buying drugs from hawkers, abuse of codeine and self-medication and using kerosene tanker to load groundnut oil.

She listed others as the use of Azo-dyes in palm oil, using sniper to preserve food, consumption of excessive oil, use of formalin in food, low level of exclusive breastfeeding, wrong use of pesticides and insecticides, among others.

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Adeyeye hoped that the campaign would address the challenges, noting that NAFDAC was working to fish out individuals jeopardising people’s health.

She described the campaign as one of the veritable regulatory mechanisms put in place by NAFDAC to promote and protect people’s health.

The NAFDAC boss said the campaign was designed to protect the people against the negative effects of unwholesome food, falsified medical products, harmful cosmetics, poor water and other substandard regulated products.

She observed that the COVID-19 period worsened manufacturing and distribution of substandard products and advised people to be wary of fake PPE at markets.

NAFDAC’s Director of Public Affairs, Abuja, Dr. Abubakar Jimoh, said the sensitisation served as part of recruitment for the public to take part in the fight against illicit products.

He said: “We have decided to recruit all of you in the vanguard of the campaign because we cannot do it on our own. We are talking of a population of over 200 million Nigerians and a staff strength of below 3,000. We cannot do that alone.”

Representatives of other paramilitary agencies hailed NAFDAC for its approach in curbing the menace of fake products.