HEALTH, Community Development, Gender,
Children and Elderly Minister Ummy Mwalimu cuts a ribbon to launch
Global Pharma Health Fund (GPHF- Minilab), a mobile mini-laboratory that
helps in detection of counterfeit medicines, enabling health facilities
that purchase, store and distribute drugs to protect themselves and
patients against consumption of phony medicines. The launching event at
the Tanzania Food and Drug Authority in Dar es Salaam was also attended
by World Health Organisation Country Representative Dr Matthieu Kamwa
(left), Representative from the ministry’s Advisory Board to TFDA, Ms
Zaina Thabiti, Director General of the authority, Mr Hiiti Sillo and Dr
Yonah Hebron. (Photo by Mohamed Mambo)
SUPPLY of fake and substandard drugs in the local market declined from 3.7 to less than one per cent in the past decade, according to the industry regulator.
Tanzania Food and Drugs Authority (TFDA)
says the counterfeit remedies have been risking consumers’ health,
hinting that most of the phony pills flooding the market were
anti-malarial.
TFDA Director General Hiiti Sillo said
in Dar es Salaam yesterday that the amount of identified substandard
drugs in the market has gradually been dropping from an average of five
per cent in 2005 to only one per cent, this year.
Mr Sillo was speaking at the launch of
the third batch of movable laboratories (Minilabs kits) at the TFDA’s
headquarters in the city. He attributed the fading away of the
counterfeit medicines in the market to application of Minilabs at
different TFDA’s centres in different parts of the country.
The kit application discouraged dealers
from the illegal business after realising that it was almost impossible
to import and distribute the drugs in the country, thanks to tightened
control measures.
Health, Community Development, Gender,
Children and Elders Minister Ummy Mwalimu launched the batch of 10
Minilabs valued at 100m/- yesterday, bringing to 25 the total number of
the kits since 2012.
The Minilabs make initial testing of the
drugs and provides results within ten minutes. They will be mainly
testing the quality of essential drugs for tuberculosis,
antiretrovirals, malaria and antibiotics.
Mr Sillo told the minister that the
newly purchased Minilabs will be dispatched to the authority’s zonal
offices in Arusha, Mwanza, Mbeya, Dodoma, Mtwara, Mara, Ruvuma, Tanga
and Kigoma.
They will also be availed to customs
centres at Dar es Salaam Port and Julius Nyerere International Airport
(JNIA). He explained that more Minilabs will lead to increasing number
of testing centres, enhancing control of quality of medicines in the
market, as a result.
“The authority is determined to protect the public against the risks of consuming falsified medicines,” he said.
Ms Mwalimu described the kit purchase as
timely as the government gears up to improve availability of drugs in
the country. “The medical product should meet three requirements:
quality, safety and efficiency,” she emphasised.
She reminded the local pharmaceutical
industries to abide by the requirements, vowing that the government will
not purchase drugs from manufacturers who hardly observe the
manufacturing guidelines.
World Health Organisation (WHO) Country
Representative Dr Matthieu Kamwa said all medicines must be safe and of
good quality, which are guaranteed by taking control measures from
production, transportation, distribution to consumption.
Dr Kamwa said medicine regulations have
instrumental role in controlling standards of the medical products,
saying the Minilabs will boost TFDA’s efficiency in regulating the
industry
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