NAFDAC Set To Host Traditional Medicine Quality Forum

Ekohotblog gathered that the meeting will take place at the Transcorp Hilton Abuja from the 24th- – 28th February, 2020.

The African Medicine Quality Forum was established in 2017 as a Technical Working Group of African Medicines Regulatory Harmonization (AMRH) that is jointly domiciled at AUDA-NEPAD and WHO, Geneva as joint secretariats.

The goal is to build and strengthen the capacity of African countries in medicines quality control and regional post marketing surveillance which in turn, will contribute significantly to reducing sub-standard and falsified medical products in circulation in the African markets.

According to a statement signed by Prof Mojisola Christianah Adeyeye, Director General, NAFDAC, “AMQF is expected to drive the harmonization of Quality Control (QC) standards and practices and, ultimately the mutual recognition of QC tests among African countries.

It is a platform for a holistic continental quality control agenda that facilitates sharing of best practices, an advocacy platform to raise the national and international visibility of National Quality Control Laboratories ((NQCL) “AMQF membership is open to heads of NQCLs from all African countries and formally reports to the African Medicines Regulatory Harmonization (AMRH) Steering Committee.”

According to the Director General, NAFDAC, the conference will convene all members of the AMQF including its Technical Committee (TC), leadership from USP, AUDA-NEPAD, WHO, Regional Economic Communities (RECs), Regional Health Organizations (RHOs) as well as other partners and key stakeholders.Among the objectives of the 3rd African Medicine Quality Forum are:Reinforce the importance of quality control laboratories in post marketing surveillance

Strengthen regional/cross border collaborative survey of medicines in Africa as a means of protecting public health.Familiarize Regional Economic Communities with instrumentation and analytical techniques to facilitate convergence for ensuring quality of medicines.

Complete the road map for strengthening National Quality Control Laboratories infrastructure and systems to help make informed, reliable and consistent regulatory decisions.

Emphasize the importance of Quality Control in the entire drug approval process: Manufacturing to Post-marketing.Sensitize National Medicines Quality Control Laboratories on the importance of drafting laboratory strategic and business plan to ensure continual provision of Quality Control testing that meet international standards of quality.

Develop proposal to ensure that National Medicine Quality Control Laboratories have the required legal mandate and well-defined scope of activities.