The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, has banned the importation of Indomie noodles into the country.

Recall that the Health officials in Malaysia and Taiwan said they had detected ethylene oxide, a compound, in Indomie’s special chicken flavour noodles.

According to the World Health Organisation, WHO, ethylene oxide is a colourless, highly reactive, end flammable gas widely used as an intermediate in the production of various chemicals.

The Director General of the Agency, Prof Mojisola Adeyeye, said the compound of interest was ethylene oxide, already the Director of Food Lab Services Directorate has been engaged and has started working on the methodology for the analysis.

The statement on Monday read: Indomie noodles have been banned from being imported into the country for many years. It is one of the foods on the government prohibition list. It is not allowed in Nigeria, and therefore not registered by NAFDAC.

“What we are doing is an extra caution to ensure that the product is not smuggled in, and if so, our post marketing surveillance would detect it. We also want to be sure that the spices used for the Indomie and other noodles in Nigeria are tested.

“That is what NAFDAC Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (FSAN) and Post Marketing Surveillance (PMS) are doing this week at the production facilities and in the market, respectively.”

Meanwhile, the agency said it will begin random sampling of indomie noodles including the seasoning from the production facilities today (Tuesday).