The National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA) said it has begun the review of its regulatory instruments developed since its formation in 2015 till date.
While speaking during one of the internal review meetings held today (February 6, 2023), the director-general of NBMA, Dr. Rufus Ebegba said the agency is subjecting all its regulatory instruments and guidelines to internal review – a process which he said will be a continuous process to improve all developed guidelines and instruments since 2015.
“I understand that these documents went through rigorous processes of development in the past years. Let me also recognise all efforts geared towards the present state of these documents by our stakeholders. However,” he pointed out, “we are looking at the documents holistically to see if there is any need to correct any aspect.
“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, up to standard and is up to date with international best practices.”
Ebegba said a lot of guidelines, frameworks/strategies, application forms and information manuals have been developed by the agency since its inception and these have helped in strengthening Nigeria’s biosafety system. Also, he urged various committees handling some guidelines still under the drafting stage to tidy up their works and present the guidelines for review.
The NBMA, Science Nigeria understands, has developed various regulatory instruments and guidelines developed since 2015. These include two national policies, seven guidelines, 12 inspection forms, five manuals, one frequently asked questions document and three strategies/frameworks (including the National Biosafety Risk Analysis Framework, National Biosafety Emergency Response Strategy and the National Biosafety Communication Strategy).
A statement by the agency’s head of media and protocol unit, Gloria Ogbaki said this internal review had in attendance all heads of departments and staff of the agency.
