African stakeholders strategies to combat substandard drugs across the continent
Ogunrinde Victoria, Abuja
Major stakeholders from across 43 countries in Africa has set to meet and map out strategies to combat the menace of substandard and falsified medicine in Africa.
The Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire made this known while declaring the forum open on Tuesday at the ongoing African Medcines Quality Forum (AMQF) in Abuja.
The 3rd annual meeting of the AMQF is being hosted by the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) with the theme “2020: Perfect Vision for Quality Medcines in Africa”
Ehanire, tasked participants to immediately map out continental strategy towards reduction and complete eradication of substandard and falsified medcine in Africa.
However, he said the emergence of AMQF has given Africa a chance to address the menace thus, called on the Forum to strengthen collaboration among African medicine Regulatory authorities and assist member countries in developing capacity and structure to fight the proliferation of substandard and falsified medicines.
“I also enjoy AMQF to develop a framework to conduct regular medcine quality survey across regional and national boundaries and to provide government with reliable data on distribution of substandard and falsified medcines and also for planning safe health care delivery to our citizens”, he said.
“I urge AMQF to use this platform to facilitate information sharing on best practices to set conformity assessment standards, provide technical leadership and also serve as an advocacy platform for global visibility of national quality control laboratories in Africa,” the minister added.
Meanwhile, the Director General, NAFDAC, Mojisola Adeyeye in her remarks said, the aim of the forum is to promote quality control among national laboratories, build and strengthen the capacity of African countries in medicine quality control and regional post market surveillance.
“We want to make sure that Africans get the medcine they ought to get,” she said.
The AMQF is the Quality Control (QC) voice of the the African Medcines Regulatory Harmonization (AMRH). Objectives of the forum include to; complete the roadmap for strengthening National Quality Control Laboratories (NQCL) infrastructure and systems to help make informed, reliable and consistent regulatory decision, draw up proposal for regional/Criss birder survey of medcines of public health importance in Africa among others.
The Forum is convened in collaboration with AUDA-NEPAD, USP, WHO and supported by World Bank.