Together Against Substandard and Falsified Medicines

Medicines save many lives. Substandard and falsified medical products may cause harm to patients and fail to treat the diseases for which they were intended to treat. Proliferation of these products endangers lives, poses a threat to hard-won global progress in reducing mortality and contributes to the emerging threat of Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR). This challenge is prevalent in Low-and Middle-Income countries where the circulation of safe medicines in the healthcare system is a key problem.

EPN’s mission is to promote access to just and compassionate quality pharmaceutical service. EPN’s ecosystem constitutes faith-based healthcare institutions serving communities in low-resources settings predominantly in the Sub-Saharan Africa region. Over the years, through sustained action and collaboration, EPN has extensively implemented various interventions to ensure availability, access, affordability and quality of medicine. Considering that the lack of or insufficiency of such commodities in LMICs is aggravated by other correlating challenges, these interventions are implemented in a multi-pronged approach.

The training of healthcare workers has helped to improve their capacity to provide quality pharmaceutical services, improve their awareness and surveillance efforts of quality of medicines, understand best practices in the medicine supply chain, and help improve rational medicine handling and use. These professionals are also able to cascade information and sensitize patients and members of the public on the importance of using medicine only prescribed by qualified healthcare professionals.

Availability and access to quality and safety medicines is pivotal in eradicating the circulation of substandard and falsified. Pooled procurement of medicine and medical products is an initiative of EPN that provides a mechanism for member Drugs Supply Organizations (DSOs) to procure medical products that are of good quality and affordable prices. It has ensured sourcing of essential medicines and medical supplies at lower prices, with consistent supply and cost-efficiency and most importantly of good quality.

EPN is also contributing to efforts to ensure patient and medicine safety through better surveillance and detection of substandard medicines among member health facilities. With the utilization of Global Pharma Health Fund (GPHF) minilab toolkit, this has been instrumental in identifying unsafe products in the network to ensure that medicine and medical products distributed in the supply chain meets the quality standards. This information is communicated among national regulators and international partners. It has also provided an opportunity for knowledge-sharing among members

It is EPN’s belief that strong supply chain systems withstand global supply chain disruptions as witnessed during the Covid-19 pandemic.   EPN enhances the capacities of DSOs in its network to implement effective procurement strategies and practices for selection, procurement, distribution and storage are followed, and good distribution practice and quality assurance systems are implemented.
Strengthening this system has also been amplified through involvement of key actors. Through advocacy, EPN has been able to facilitate engagement with government agencies, local authorities and policy makers. This has seen improved action and call for stronger, long-term, high-level political commitment towards ensuring regulatory reforms are implemented with increased investment in surveillance mechanisms.
Through these programs, EPN have witnessed improved capacity of healthcare staff to efficiently and effectively provide pharmaceutical services and awareness on quality of medicines, enhanced testing of suspected substandard and falsified medicines, strengthened surveillance in the DSO networks, more involvement and engagement with partners and government agencies, such as the MoH, increased collaboration to improved regulatory mechanism among others.

In these years #FTFWeek, we speak up for patients fighting against substandard & #fakemeds and join the global community in acknowledging efforts to improve #supplychain systems and mechanisms to #StopFakeMeds. We seek to press on in these efforts through sustained commitment and coherent multi-sectoral collaboration. We further call for sustained, scaled-up awareness and training, continued efforts to improve medicine surveillance and reinforcement of the regulatory environments, policies and investments.
Together we can end preventable deaths caused by use of unsafe medicines.
#StopFakeMedsAfrica #FightTheFakes #MedSafetyWeek