Particles for Humanity Presents to Nigeria’s National Fortification Alliance
Cambridge, MA (December 13, 2022). Particles for Humanity attended the National Fortification Alliance meeting in Lagos, Nigeria at the invitation of the Director General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), which is responsible for registering new products and ensuring food fortification mandate compliance.
Nigerian regulations require five foods to be fortified with vitamin A: wheat flour, maize flour, sugar, oil, and butter/margarine. These efforts are critical because almost 6% of deaths in children-under-5 can be attributed to VAD in Africa. However, the high temperature and humid environment in Nigeria and other parts of Africa cause commercially available products to be unstable in many foods, losing large amounts of vitamin A and limiting their ability to address VAD. Fortifying widely consumed staple foods with different micronutrients is a proven strategy for reducing malnutrition at scale, but the instability of vitamin A limits the effectiveness of this intervention. It also impedes the potential to fortify new food vehicles, like bouillon, which is currently under consideration for fortification standards because it is consumed by almost 100% of households in Nigeria.
Particles for Humanity is developing a stable form of vitamin A, PFH-VAP, to solve stability issues when fortifying foods in hot and humid climates. After 12 months of storage in bouillon under hot and humid conditions, PFH-VAP is significantly more stable than a leading commercial product.
Nigeria’s National Fortification Alliance (NFA) is a country-wide forum to discuss progress on food fortification objectives and opportunities for improvement. Many critical stakeholders in the food fortification space attended, including ingredient premixers, rice and wheat millers, sugar refiners, NGOs, and regulators. Dr. Don Chickering, Chief Technical Officer, shared PFH’s stability data, technical approach, and future product development plans followed by questions and feedback from the stakeholder audience.
Sherri Oberg, President and CEO, commented, “By traveling to Nigeria to speak directly with many stakeholders, we learned just how urgent the need is for a more stable form of vitamin A. We look forward to revising our plans based on the feedback we received. In early 2023, we will launch a program to explore PFH-VAP stability when fortifying wheat flour, which is mandated in Nigeria.”
Particles for Humanity transforms early-stage medical technology into products for people living in low- resource settings. It is developing a portfolio of products with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Mulago Foundation, and King Philanthropies. Its rigorous product development process is based on end-user input and is focused on financially sustainable product opportunities. For more information, visit the company's website www.particlesfh.com.
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