Support govt to check influx of fake drugs

Spread, September 27/2008

Story: Charles Benoni Okine

THE Vice-President, Alhaji Aliu Mahama, has asked the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of Ghana (PMAG) to support government agencies and other stakeholders to prevent the influx of fake or counterfeit drugs into the country and the sub-region.
He said there were some international criminal groups which had taken undue advantage of the globalised world to engage in all manner of fraudulent activities, to the detriment of the genuine ones such as the PMAG.
Alhaji Mahama made the call at the celebration of Pharmaceutical Day, under the auspices of the PMAG, in Accra yesterday. It was on the theme, “Pharmaceutical Manufacturing In Ghana: Building a centre of excellence”.
He said the government was aware of how a vibrant drug production industry would enhance the development of associated service industries in equipment and other accessories and noted that the manner in which the industry was being disturbed was unfortunate.
The Vice-President said there was ample evidence to show that the quality of locally manufactured drugs in terms of their safety and efficiency matched that of those imported into the country.
“However, the local production of these drugs meets only 30 per cent of our requirements,” he said, adding, “This huge gap in local supplies should be seen as an opportunity to grow the pharmaceutical manufacturing sector through investment in manufacturing facilities.”
Alhaji Mahama said the government was pursuing policies under the Trade and Investment Promotion (TIP) programme managed by the Ministry of Trade, Industry, Private Sector Development and PSIs which were aimed at removing both internal and external constraints to the development and promotion of locally manufactured drugs.
He recounted the devastating effects of malaria on the people, saying that “available statistics show that malaria alone affects over 17 million people in Ghana”.
“Besides the death caused by this disease among the youth and the elderly, it also adversely affects productivity and economic output due to loss in man hours,” he added.
Alhaji Mahama proposed a two-prong approach to battle the disease, namely, prevention and treatment.
He described as refreshing the quest of the association to achieve excellence, saying, “By building a centre of excellence, we, as a country, shall become less dependent on others for our healthcare needs, while at the same time developing new medications by harnessing the inherent medical wealth in our plants.”
He urged the PMAG to continue to collaborate with the Food and Drugs Board (FDB), as well as explore avenues for partnering with the Centre for Scientific Research into Plant Medicine and other research institutions, to come out with drug formulations and preparations which would require the use of local resources and expertise.
The President of the association, Dr M.A. Addo, complained about what he described as the extremely long bureaucratic process at the ports, for which importers were made to pay high demurrage on their imports.
He said that, and the general lack of low interest funds from the banks, were hindrances to the members of the association, most of whom had the capacity to manufacture drugs to fully meet local consumption and for export to raise foreign capital.
Dr Addo said the members of the association also had the capacity to produce anti malaria drugs to meet local demands and urged the government to re-think its intention to source those drugs from China.
He said should the association get the support it needed from the government, not only would it bring the prices of locally manufactured drugs down but it would also produce to meet the quality and standard of the imported ones.
The Deputy Chief Executive of the FDB in charge of drugs, Mr Ben Botwe, said the board had categorised drugs according to their quality to entice those whose drugs were in the lower categories to work harder to move up.