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Recent capacity building exercise at the Institute of Public Analysts of Nigeria (IPAN) has potential to broaden the scope of public analysts’ competencies, improve quality assurance standards of laboratories and lead to better export prospects for Nigerian products with ISO/IEC 17025:2005 accreditation.
IPAN is a parastatal of the Federal Ministry of Health, a professional regulatory body of public analysts established by IPAN ACT CAP. I 16 LFN 2004, to train, examine, register public analysts and regulate their practice.
A Public Analyst is a registered member of the Institute, who by virtue of their knowledge, training, skill, competence and integrity is authorised by law to analyse consumer and health-related products such as: food, drugs, medical devices, cosmetics, water, chemicals, chemical and biological-based consumer products. A public analyst issues certificates, (a prima facie evidence tenable in any law court or tribunal in Nigeria) regarding their composition, use, quality, safety and efficacy.
IPAN in collaboration with the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) organised a three-day training October 9 – 12 for its members to bring them up to speed with international quality assurance and control standards with particular emphasis on acquiring the ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation.
“The training is captioned ‘Laboratory Quality Management System Towards ISO/IEC 17025:2005 Accreditation.’ Among Nigeria’s deficiencies one of the most critical is the lack of robust national quality management infrastructure. You will recall that a couple of years ago, our beans were rejected by the European Union (EU) because quality testing was not done, so our beans did not meet the required standards. Until a sound quality infrastructure is put in place, our exports will continue being affected” said Adebola Adekoya, senior quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC) specialist at U.S. Pharmacopeia promoting the quality of medicine (PQM) Programme in Nigeria funded by United States of America International Development (USAID).
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According to International Organization for Standardization (ISO), ISO/IEC 17025:2005, specifies the general requirements for the competence to carry out tests and/or calibrations, including sampling. It covers testing and calibration performed using standard methods, non-standard methods, and laboratory-developed methods.
It is applicable to all organisations performing tests and/or calibrations. These include, for example, first-, second- and third-party laboratories, and laboratories where testing and/or calibration forms part of inspection and product certification.
Adekoya contended that ISO accreditation is required for testing and calibrating laboratories, it confirms the competency of staff working in a Quality Control (QC) laboratory and also attests to the establishment of quality management system.
“Once this system is in place, it guarantees quality of test results. If the beans that were rejected in the EU had been tested ab initio in an accredited laboratory they would have detected the toxins, micro toxins and all kinds of things that should not be there in the first place and provide information to the exporter. But where such system and facility are not available, our export system is affected. What is more, the foreign exchange that would have been earned by Nigeria is equally affected and the prospect of businesses across board will be affected too” Adekoya added.
In Nigeria only a handful of laboratories have this accreditation and sad enough they are owned by government, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) and the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON). NAFDAC has three laboratories that are ISO accredited, supported by the PQM programme funded by the USAID. SON also has accredited laboratories.
A number challenges militate against Nigerian laboratories attaining the ISO/IEC 17025:2005 accreditation.
“There are quite a number bottlenecks to deal with. For the business of science to thrive in Nigeria, government must support it. For instance, getting equipment and accreditation entail substantial costs. Many of our members who were supposed to be here for the training could not make it because of the cost, N100, 000 only, this is subsidised” Duro Abdusalam, Acting Registrar, IPAN told BusinessDay on the side-lines of the training event.
“The banks do not give our people loans, patronage is poor. When you are able to install equipment, you most times do not have commensurate business to break even. The low patronage is due to the fact that businesses, especially exporters do not yet appreciate the value of embedding quality in their business” Abdusalam lamented.
One more factor throwing spanners in the cog of laboratory operations that is worth mentioning is power supply. “We face lots of challenges, the main one is infrastructural deficit, particularly power supply, our equipment utilise power and in a situation where electricity supply is not regular, an hour in nine hours of business, you have to rely on generators and no matter how good the generators are, overuse leads to breakdown” said Ademilola Adebayo, Coordinating Consultant, A&B Laboratories and Consultancy Services, Oshodi, Lagos.
STEPHEN ONYEKWELU
