Nigeria: NAFDAC Shuts Onitsha Market Over Fake Drugs
National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), yesterday morning closed down the sprawling Onitsha Bridge Head Drug Market, in a pre-dawn operation involving a combined detachment of soldiers and policemen.
The market, consisting of over 2,500 drug shops, was cordoned-off before the traders arrived.
Speaking on behalf of the Director-General of Nafdac, Professor Dora Akunyili, Nafdac's Director of Enforcement, Pharmacist Dioka Ejionueme, who led the operation, said the closure became inevitable, to check the market's increasing danger to public health.
By Chinyere Okoye
6 March 2007