Accra, Nov. 13, - The Food and
Drugs Authority (FDA) has pledged its readiness to come out with a collective
collaborative strategy that would make Ghana an unfavourable destination for
dealers in fake drugs.
Ms Delese Mimi Darko, the Chief
Executive Officer of FDA, said it was, therefore, equipping its stakeholders
such as the media, the judiciary and security agencies with skills on modern
trends in pharmaceutical crime investigations, intelligence and handling of
evidence to nib falsified medicines in the bud.
Ms Darko was speaking at the
opening of a six-day training in pharmaceutical crime, intelligence and
investigation training programme in Accra.
The workshop, which brought
together officials from the FDA, the Judiciary, the Media and Security agencies
was funded by the Department for International Development (DFID) of the United
Kingdom.
Ms Darko noted that
pharmaceutical crime had become a global phenomenon and was posing a
significant threat to security and economies of countries.
She said production and
trafficking in falsified medicines was a multibillion illegal business, which
was sustained largely by the lure of high financial gains that was combined
with low risk of detection.
Ms Darko said while quality
medicines supply was essential for the health of any nation, the consequence of
pharmaceutical crime threatened the health of the population.
“Treatment failure, drug
resistance are fast becoming a problem globally and put patients at risk,” Ms
Darko said.
She said the leniency of
penalties and low risk of prosecution had made the trade in falsified medicines
attractive to unauthorised dealers and possibly criminal groups.
She said pharmaceutical crime
included falsified medicines, medical devices, counterfeit, mislabelled and
misrepresented medicines.
Ms Darko said over the years the
FDA, in its market surveillance activities, had detected distribution of
falsified versions of worm treatments, anti-malaria, antibiotics, analgesics,
codeine-containing cough mixtures and controlled substance such as Tramadol and
diazepam and other aphrodisiacs with unknown content and undetermined origin in
Ghana.
She said those who peddled and
smuggled those dangerous products from unauthorised premises included foreign
nationals and persons who had also not been licensed for that purpose.
She told the participants that
their valuable inputs during the training would be put into the work of the
FDA.
Mr Thomas Amedzro, the Head of
Drug Enforcement Department, FDA, who took participants through the; Dangers of
Counterfeit Drugs, said they were a threat to vital organs and others also
suffered adverse reactions and hypertensions.
He said the counterfeit drugs
also decreased confidence in the health system.
Some of the challenges that the
FDA had with these counterfeit drugs were that they were advertised on social
media and delivered through courier service, he said.
GNA
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