Chuks Oyema-Aziken
The National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA), has begun the review of its regulatory instruments that have been developed from 2015 till date.
The review aim to ensure improvement of all the documents.
Speaking at the occasion on Monday, Director General/Chief Executive Officer of NBMA, Dr. Rufus Ebegba, said it is to also ensure that the documents are in tandem with international norms due to the increase in scientific knowledge.
He said the Agency is subjecting all its regulatory instruments and guidelines to internal review noting that it will be a continuous process that would include all the developed guidelines and instruments since 2015.
According to the Director-General “I understand that these documents went through rigorous processes of development in the past years. Let me also recognize all efforts geared towards the present taste of these documents by our stakeholders. However, we are looking at the documents holistically to see if there was any need to correct any aspect of them’’.
“The essence of these internal review series is to ensure that the documents are in tandem with international norms due to the increase in scientific knowledge. The internal reviews of the Agency’s guidelines and application forms are all part of efforts to ensure that the Nigerian Biosafety system is strengthened, is up to standard and is up to date with international best practices.”
Dr Ebegba said a lot of guidelines, frameworks/strategies, application forms and information manuals have been developed by the Agency since inception and these have helped in strengthening the Nigerian Biosafety system. He also urged various committees handling some guidelines still under drafting stage to tidy up their works and present the guidelines for reviews.
The NBMA has developed various regulatory instruments and guidelines developed since 2015 and they include two National policies, seven guidelines, twelve Inspection forms, five manuals, one frequently asked question and three strategies/frameworks; including National Biosafety Risk Analysis Framework, National Biosafety Emergency Response Strategy and National Biosafety Communication Strategy.
This internal review had in attendance all heads of departments and staff of the Agency.
