NAFDAC : Our laboratories are of international standard – DG.

The National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control, NAFDAC, says, it does not and had never contracted the analyses of its micronutrients or any   parameter of its regulated  products  to   private laboratory in the last few years as it has laboratory capable of handling all it’s activities.

The DG NAFDAC Professor Mojisola Adeyeye, clear the air at the heals of an online publication Flowerbud NEWS of 30^th September 2023 on non-establishment of testing laboratory for fortifcation by the Agency.

According to a professor Mojisola, the reporter, Lydia Ngwakwe claimed that the assertion was made by  “ The Nigeria Economic Summit Group (NESG) in collaboration with the Civil Society Legislave Advisory Centre (CSLAC) and eHealth.

 “ I wish to state. Unequivocally that NAFDAC has laboratories for analyses of micronutrients in food and had been conducting annual survey on food fortification in Nigeria for the past years. Particularly, the Central Food Laboratory has international accredited micronutrient laboratory units with the state-of-the-art equipment. “ Mojisola

 “ The laboratory has the Vitamins units for testing of vitamins in food which include Vitamin premix and fortified food vehicles. Vitamins tested include fat soluble- Vitamin A; water soluble – thiamine, ribo6avin, biotin, pyridoxine hydrochloride, cyanocobalamin, folate. “ She added

This unit is equipped with latest versions of Agilent and Chromaster brands of High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC).The Laboratory has the Metal unit equipped with latest models of Atomic Absorption Spectrometer (AAS), Inductively Coupled Plasma-Optical Emission Spectrometer (ICP-OES), Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometer (ICP-MS).

She explained further that, the metal unit analyses all the nutritional and heavy toxic metals in food including the fortification vehicles. These units have well trained staff that are technically equipped to handle the equipment in the analyses of micronutrients using internationally accepted protocols.

“ The test scopes of the units were accredited by American National Accreditation Board (ANAB) since 2018 and this has been sustained and renewed annually. This fact can be verified from the ANAB website, adding that, the laboratory along with other NAFDAC laboratories in other parts of the country handled over 10,000 samples of fortified food in the 2023 Food fortification survey “ NAFDAC DG.

The result of the samples were presented to the National Fortification Alliance (NFA.

The NFA consist of representatives of the industries – Flourmills, Sugar processing, Vegetable oil, etc., government and regulatory agencies, and donor partners.