HEALTH MINISTER LAUNCHED THE GHANA GLOBAL STANDARD FOR PHARMACEUTICAL TRACEABILITY STRATEGY
As one of the Ministry of Health’s major goals is to improve the health status of all people living in Ghana through the effective and efficient formulation of policies and the regulation and delivery of health care by different health agencies as per Strategy 3.1.4 of the National Health Policy, 2020, there was the need to develop the Ghana Pharmaceutical Traceability Strategy. The Ministry of Health together with its stakeholders, including the private sector, have worked together to develop a pharmaceutical traceability strategy for Ghana with the objectives of increasing supply chain visibility, improving quality control systems, and reducing the risk of counterfeit medicines in the market.
Speaking at the Launch, the Director General of Ghana Health Service (GHS) in a speech read on his behalf by Dr Bismark Attah-Adjepong, expressed how poised the GHS was in embracing the strategy. stated that the implementation of this strategy will provide a well-protected system in the fight against health commodities.
“The implementation of this Pharmaceutical Traceability Strategy, with the support of the Ghana Integrated Logistics Management Information System (GhiLMIS) platform, would provide a robust and well-protected system in the fight against substandard health commodities including pharmaceuticals and reduce the cost of treatment,” he said.
He also emphasised that the Pharmaceutical Traceability strategy will ensure automatic verification in the dispensation and drug administration processes as well as reduce medical errors, thereby improving patient safety and supply chain efficiency.
The Minister for Health, Hon. Kwaku Agyeman-Manu highlighted the benefits of tracing substandard and falsified medicines if adopted.
“The adoption of the Ghana Pharmaceutical Traceability Strategy will be beneficial in tracing substandard and falsified medicines. It would also help to address the risks associated with patient safety medicine administration, thereby reducing the financial burden on the National Health Insurance” he added.
He then expressed his satisfaction towards the benefits that Ghana will receive from the global system that speaks one language in terms of product identification in the form of a coding system which is interoperable with other countries’ coding systems.
Hon. Agyeman-Manu expressed gratitude to USAID for their financial and technical support to develop the strategy and hoped that other partners would bring their contributions on board.