The Ministry of Health lifts its foot on the producers of fake drugs

In 2013, the European Union ranked Ghana as the 6th largest producer of fake medicines in the world.

More than 800,000 people, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), die each year due to the use of counterfeit medicines.

This is mainly because these drugs are cheaper and more accessible than genuine drugs.

Speaking at the launch of Ghana’s Global Standards for Pharmaceutical Traceability project, Health Minister Kwaku Agyemang Manu said the new system will help bring culprits to justice.

The Ghana Global Standards Project has the capability to identify, capture and exchange product information between all entities in the supply chain.

“Ghana’s adoption will be beneficial in tracing substandard and falsified medicines detected in the legitimate supply chain. It also helps to address the risk associated with patient safety and drug administration, thereby reducing the financial burden on the national health insurance scheme.

“People are murderers, and they should be sentenced to death, but we have no way or system to catch them and I believe we are getting closer to unveiling strategies to catch them and seeing how much we can punish them “, said the minister.

The Ghana Global Standards Project aims to strengthen the pharmaceutical industry in developing and least developed countries to contribute to better access to essential medicines.

This project also covered the broader assessment of Ghanaian companies in 2016.

The West African Health Organization (WAHO) supported a regional project that allowed this work to continue, including the provision of technical advice to Ghanaian manufacturers and for the incorporation of the roadmap approach of Ghana as part of the ECOWAS GMP roadmap.

Ghana has the second largest pharmaceutical manufacturing sector in the ECOWAS region with 38 FDA registered manufacturers and over 30 active producers, directly employing over 5,000 people.