Experts want pharmaceuticals to prioritise drug safety

HEALTH | DRUG SAFETY

Experts yesterday called on pharmaceutical companies to prioritise safety of medicines consumed, amid concerns of substandard pills on the market.

The 2016 Uganda Demographic Health Survey found that Ugandans spent 42% of their total household expenditure on health, mainly on purchase of medicines.

But you want to spend on medicines that will treat you, with no or very minimal effects.

Morries Seru, the commissioner for pharmaceutical services at the health ministry, sounded the call.

"It is no longer sufficient for governments to ensure only availability of medicines, but it is now also necessary that they monitor and alleviate the potential harm drugs may inflict on patients accessing them," he said.

This was during the 40 annual meeting of drug monitors attended by representatives from over 70 countries at the Speke Resort Munyonyo in Kampala.

The meeting that opened yesterday, seeks to draw insight into prevailing medicine safety across the globe.

Seru, who represented health minister Dr Jane Aceng, said: "The  main responsibility of drug regulation and in particular pharmacovigilance is to safeguard our human and animal population from poor, unsafe and ineffective pharmaceuticals."

The 2016 UDHS showed that almost half of all hospitalised patients in the country will experience an adverse drug reaction, mainly because of unsafe or poorly administered medications.

Dr Bayo Fatunmbi, who represented the World Health Organisation, re-echoed the importance of good quality, safe and affordable medicines in disease and poverty eradication.

"We need medicines that are safe and that work," said Fatunmbi.

"Our country faces several public health challenges, with the most prominent: HIV/AIDS, malaria and multi-drug resistant tuberculosis. Lifestyle diseases are also on the increase and government's efforts to remediate these have required the use of many new drugs which often present with toxicities," said Seru.

However, the Uganda National Drug Authority chairperson, Dr. Medard Bitekyerezo, said drugs in the country were safe.

"We have systems that monitor quality. All the drugs in the country, whether imported or locally manufactured, meet specifications.

He made a case for locally manufactured medicines, asking Ugandans to prioritize them over imported drugs.

"The continued monitoring of drugs has allowed our health practitioners to routinely make empirical treatment decisions that allow patients exposed to the drugs to accrue their benefits with minimal adverse drug effects," he said.