General News of Tuesday, 7 July 2020
Source: www.ghanaweb.live
2020-07-07Coronavirus: Don’t buy substandard sanitizers, report products – FDA
There has been a high demand for hand sanitizers across the world. File photo
There has been a price hike in the sale of alcohol-based sanitizers due to the Coronavirus pandemic and as expected, some persons have taken advantage of the situation to manufacture substandard sanitizers which are sold to innocent people on a daily bases.
The Public Relations Officer of the Food and Drug Authority, James Lartey, in an
Read full articleexclusive interview with GhanaWeb charged the public to assist the Authority to clamp down on the activities of manufacturers of fake sanitizers and disinfecting sprays.
“For the sake of reporting the persons, buy a sample, take a receipt and report to the FDA that you got it from a shop. This is the sample and it has no registration number and then the FDA can take an action.”
Since the outbreak of the virus in Ghana, some health items like hand sanitizer, face shield, and face masks have been exorbitantly overpriced causing many to resort to locally manufactured products.
Notwithstanding, the FDA has advised local producers to acquire a permit from them before introducing their products on the market.
Speaking to GhanaWeb, Mr. Lartey mentioned that, the FDA is not against local manufactures but rather “want to help them come up with a standard for their products to be acceptable by everybody”.
He again tasked the public to look out for the FDA registration number (local products), ingredients of the product, the manufacturer's name and address, manufacturing and expiry date, as well as the batch number on all products which serve as a symbol of quality before purchasing sanitizers and alcohol rubs from the market, shops and on the streets.
“If you go to the market and you notice that a product has no FDA registration number, that alone should tell you not to patronize the product and to report to the FDA… as much as the regulator is doing post-market surveillance to ensure that consumers are safe, the consumer must also be alert and patronizing only products that been approved.”
The general public can reach the FDA on their hotlines on 0299802932, 0299802933 or on WhatsApp 0206973065 to report any fake product on the market.
