The National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) said in order to curtail abuse, it has placed a ban on the sale of Sniper insecticide in open markets and supermarkets.
The agency said it was high time stricter measures were taken to check the circulation of the product which is supposedly meant for farm use and not for household.
NAFDAC’s Director, Veterinary Medicine and Allied Products Directorate, Dr. Bukar Usman, disclosed this on Wednesday at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, saying that the agency has taken stricter measures to curtail the use of Sniper (Dichlorvos or 2,2-dichlorovinyl dimethyl phosphate) in homes to end the abuse of the pesticide which in recent times had been associated with suicides in Nigeria
His words, “recently, some suicide cases have been associated with people drinking Sniper, henceforth, we call on the agro-chemical industry to enhance their distribution channels so that this product (Sniper) gets to only accredited distributors and marketers.“We have also placed a ban on the manufacture of smaller packs of Sniper which are easily purchased for household use.”
According to him, Sniper is an agro-cultural product meant to be used only in the farms and not for households.
Usman maintained that the directive was not an outright ban of the product but a restriction of its use and availability to farms alone.
He also called on manufacturers and dealers to cooperate with NAFDAC to mop up the 100ml size of the product which was cheap and easily acquired, adding that all agro-chemicals meant for farms should not be used in households.
“There are appropriate products for the control of mosquitoes and other household pests” he added.
