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Leonard Ncube, Victoria Falls Reporter
ZIMBABWE and other African states are pushing for the establishment of an African Medicines Agency in an effort to reverse the trend whereby the continent is being turned into a dumping ground for counterfeit medicines.
Officiating at the 4th Biennial Scientific Conference in Medical Products Regulation in Africa (SCoMRA IV) Monday, Health and Child Care Minister Dr Obadiah Moyo said 80 percent of Zimbabwe’s medicines are imported from India and called for local pharmaceutical players to be capacitated to manufacture health products.
“For any country to execute a perfect healthcare system there is need for adequate medicine. It becomes very relevant that one of the issues is self-sustaining in the manufacturing of medicines within our countries. In Zimbabwe 80 percent of our supplies are coming from India while Uganda imports about 90 percent,” he said.
“We as the African bloc need to ensure that we strengthen our manufacturing sector in the health sector. It is very relevant that we are in a position to standardise the regulatory processes to make sure medicines are assessed and tested in a harmonised manner as we want African countries to be able to also manufacture medicines.”
The Minister said there is a need to guard against the influx of fake medicines that put citizens’ lives at risk.
“We want safe efficient products that are available at the shortest possible time which is why it is necessary for Africa to harmonise so we independently manufacture our own. We want a situation where medicines manufactured in one country can easily be utilised in another for safety of citizens and efficiency in treatment of diseases,” said Dr Moyo.
The conference is being attended by over 300 delegates among them regulators, service providers and funders from Africa and beyond. It seeks to inspire harmonisation of standards in Africa, a route which Zimbabwe has since undertaken to strengthen the primary healthcare delivery system as well as attainment of universal health coverage.
Dr Moyo bemoaned poor funding for medical products regulatory authorities despite the continent facing a high burden of diseases.
“The continent is faced with the threat of substandard and falsified medicines due to weak regulatory frameworks. It is therefore important to build capacity for medicines regulation in Africa and enhancing local production of pharmaceuticals to counter these challenges and ensure our population has timely access to safe and effective quality medicines,” he said.
Plans for harmonised health processes started a decade ago with the establishment of the African Medicines Regulatory Harmonisation (AMRH) Initiative.
Focus now is on the African Medicines Agency although only five countries including Zimbabwe have shown commitment.
Dr Moyo said Zimbabwe is committed to medicines regulation and will be bidding for the secretariat position.
AUDA-NEPAD director Professor Aggrey Ambali said harmonising regulations will help the continent in eliminating counterfeit medicines.
“Our role as an African Union agency is to bring countries together so that we build that capacity. Individually countries may not be able to stop fake medicines and there is need to use technology, institutions of higher learning and private sector to detect counterfeit drugs,” he said.
WHO director Dr Emer Cooke urged member states to adopt a Pan Africanist approach and work together for quality products and develop competences
The theme for the two-day conference is: “A decade of regulatory harmonisation in Africa, where are we? Where do we go from here?”
The AUDA-NEPAD and Medicines Control Authority of Zimbabwe (MCAZ) organised the event in partnership with the Ministry of Health and Child Care, Sadc Secretariat, World Health Organisation (WHO), World Bank, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations and other development partners. — @ncubeleon
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