Extensive arrangements are being made by the Riyadh-based Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA) to observe the National Poison Prevention Week beginning today, a senior official from the organization told Arab News.
The goal of the week is to raise awareness about the risks of being poisoned by household products, medicines, pesticides, plants, bites and stings, food poisoning and fumes.
SFDA Chairman Mohammed Al-Kanhal said this was the fourth consecutive year the authority was observing the week. “The National Poison Prevention Week aims to raise awareness among all segments of society about how to exercise caution and prudence in the use of detergents and medicines with a focus on housewives. It also lays emphasis on the use of industrial products that are harmful to our children, which should be kept beyond their reach.”
Saleh bin Abdullah Bawazir, vice president for SFDA’s drug sector, said that the slogan for this year would be “to protect people from poisoning.”
“The week aims to instill the right guidance among people in dealing with drugs, pharmaceuticals and chemicals, and ensure that they are either used or consumed properly according to medical specifications,” Bawazir said.
The campaign for the week will be handled by the National Drug and Poison Information Center (NDPIC) of the SFDA. The NDPIC aims to provide state-of-the-art pharmaceutical information services to various consumers, including health care providers, public and industry through the available resources.
The mission of the NDPIC is to provide comprehensive, objective, unbiased and evidence-based information to health care providers for decision-making and to the public or industry for awareness and safety.
The week will focus on conferences, during which experts in the relevant field will exchange their experience with officials from the Ministry of Health, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center, National Guard Health Affairs, King Khalid University Hospital and the Saudi Pharmaceutical Society. Besides these programs, a number of scientific lectures and awareness programs will also be conducted at universities such as Imam Muhammed bin Saud Islamic University. Similar programs will be held in malls and schools to reach adults and children respectively.
The SFDA has opened a website, http://beta.sfda.gov.sa/ppw4, to give general information about food poisoning, and similar services are available on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.
In February this year, the Saudi Food and Drug Authority launched a code of ethics for those involved in manufacturing and marketing pharmaceutical products in the Kingdom. This code of ethics is considered a moral and ethical agreement for practicing pharmaceutical and drug marketing by all drug factories and organizations working in this field and by practitioners in the health care sector, including physicians and pharmacists in both the public and private sector.