Experts to meet on quality of drugs in Africa

By a Correspondent

MEDICAL and health experts, scientists, state and non-state actors from across Africa and beyond will meet in Dar es Salaam next week to exchange notes on the best ways to improve the quality of locallyproduced and imported medicines, in the face of increasing concerns over massive circulation of sub-standard medicines in the continent.

“We want to ensure that African people have access to safe, effective, and quality medicines,” according to a joint statement issued yesterday by partners organising a four-day (February 12-15) Africa Medicines Quality Forum (AMQF) and Risk-based Post-Market Surveillance of Medicines. Partners organising the forum are the United States Pharmacopeia convention (USP), New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) Agency and Tanzania Food and Drugs Authority (TFDA).
Expected to be officially graced by the Deputy Minister of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children, Dr Faustine Ndugulile, AMQF is a new Africabased initiative which intends to broadly and strategically address challenges of poor quality of medicines distributed and consumed in Africa economies. AMQF comes against a backdrop of alarming rate of reported cases of sub-standard drugs in many parts of Africa, including Tanzania.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), 42 per cent of reported cases of sub-standard and falsified (SF) products were in Africa. “That’s the reason why we are organising this forum … we want to find durable solutions to these problems and ultimately stop production and supply of sub-standard drugs in African markets,” says the statement.
Among other things, the workshop seeks to improve coordination across African regulatory authorities, strengthening their ability to pool resources and knowledge towards protecting patients by better combatting sub-standard and falsified (SF) medical products. “AMQF’s focus will include regional quality control (QC) capacity building, postmarketing surveillance, laboratory proficiency testing and certification and bioequivalence studies for generic medicines, as well as advocacy,” added the statement in part.
“At the end of the day, the workshop will establish AMQF’s technical working group (TWG), set its structure and develop its first-year activity plan.” According to the statement, the meeting marks a significant milestone as AMQF transitions to align with the African Medicines Regulatory Harmonisation (AMRH) Initiative, as part of the African Union (AU), a critical step towards harmonisation and eventual launch of the African Medicines Agency (AMA).
Drawing senior executives from private organisations/ companies, quality control and post-marketing surveillance managers from various African regulatory agencies, key leaders and stakeholders in Africa’s health sector, the workshop will serve as a platform for participants to understand the risk-based approach to post-marketing surveillance (PMS) of medicines in Africa.
“Recommendations of the workshop will help African countries establish and implement effective post-marketing surveillance programmes and will contribute to the harmonisation of medicine regulations and good practices in alignment with the African Medicines Regulatory Harmonisation (AMRH) Initiative,” according to the statement.
The meeting is expected to bring together participants from Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, Uganda, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Cameroun, Ivory Coast, Mali, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Guinea, and South Africa and regional agencies such as West African Health Agency (WAHO) and development partners like World Health Organisation (WHO), USAID and the World Bank