FDA schools drug distributors on safety

The Volta Regional Office of the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) over the weekend held an educational programme for some pharmaceutical companies.

In all, about 30 representatives of pharmaceutical sales companies went through processes and checklists that would ensure only safe products were marketed.

Chemical shop owners, among the participants, were also grilled on a purchase management scheme, which should considerably reduce business in unregistered products.

Roderick Daddey-Adjei, Volta Regional FDA Officer told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) that the sensitization programme was one of the many overtures by the Authority to sanitize the pharmaceutical distribution network in the country.

He said the FDA will henceforth prevail on distributors of pharmaceutical products to keep records of clients, their geographical locations, contacts and all information on drugs supplied, to make retrieval less cumbersome if the need arose.

Mr Daddey-Adjei said the sensitization programme was only to refresh companies about what they were fully conversant with, as part of the quality assurance process of the FDA.

Benjamin Appiasam Dadson, a Regulatory Officer said the job of the FDA was to ensure that the right thing was done to protect public interest, and not to collapse the business.

He said pharmaceutical dealers must ensure that they trade only in duly registered products, reminding them that the list was available online.

Sylvester Obiadie, also a Regulatory Officer, urged Chemical Shop owners to refrain from stocking spurious preparations, some in un-labeled packaging.

“Do not go on the streets to buy drugs to stock your shops, buy from accredited sources and demand drug registration documents of products if in doubt,” he stated.

Some participants during open forum expressed concern about the advertising of medicines on radio stations and its sales at vehicle terminals.