Afghan Voice Agency (AVA) - Kabul: Abdulbari Omar, the head of the National Food and Medicines Administration, said in a press conference on Thursday, June 8, 2023, that the country's customs are under control and the administration's fight against drug and food smuggling continues.
Omar added that any type of medicine and food that does not comply with the principles and rules of the National Food and Medicine Administration is considered smuggling.
Regarding the drug production factory that was opened three days ago in Kandahar province, he said that this factory was built at a cost of 50 million dollars, which is considered important in Afghanistan's self-sufficiency in the drug sector.
He added that this factory has the ability to produce 40 drugs and their production will reach 400 drugs in the future.
Omar said: granting licenses to pharmaceutical and food institutions in the country, organizing the production and import of food and medicine, importing food and medicine into the country, checking and registering companies and campaigns, monitoring and controlling food and medicine in the markets, among the duties of this office.
He also continued that assessing the quality of food and medicine, issuing licenses for domestic manufacturing plants, controlling imported food and medicine at customs, avoiding food and medicine are other basic duties of this department.
Omar added that he has recently issued operating licenses to 218 companies, 209 wholesalers, 6 factories, and 2087 pharmaceuticals.
The head of the Food and Medicines Department said: During the past few months, 14,664 medicines and health products worth 769,744,126 US dollars have been registered in the Food and Medicines Department.
Omar also added that this department recently analyzed 45 thousand 804 samples of medicine, food and water, of which 153 samples were negative and 757 samples were rejected.
According to the announcement of the Food and Drug Administration of the country, recently 693 pharmacies were closed due to legal violations, 287 pharmacies were recommended and 174 pharmacies were given warnings.
According to this official of the Food and Medicines Department, 410 illegal drugs, 800 expired drugs and 43 suspicious drugs have been collected in the past few months.
According to the information of this department, recently, a large amount of drugs, food and health products and old, low-quality and illegal drinks have been collected and destroyed.