The Ministry of Health (MoH) and the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) together with other agencies have launched the Global Standards1 initiative which seeks to ensure that businesses can share information of identifying their products through the usage of appropriate technology.
This initiative is to curb and regulate the importation of fake pharmaceutical products through illegal borders into the country.
The CEO of FDA, madam Delese Darko said the GS1 initiative will soon add a QR and short code to enable the general public authenticate any pharmaceutical products before usage for public safety.
The GS1 initiative is a global coding standard for products including healthcare and pharmaceuticals that provides systems for identification, processes for capturing and data exchange mechanisms.
The GS1 allows for product traceability and authentication enabling regulatory compliance among industry players and provide supply chain efficiencies.
A committee of experts from the FDA, MoH, and NHIA with sponsors from USAID Global Health Supply Chain (PSM), Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Association of Ghana, Standard Authority, and Ghana Revenue Authority were key shareholders to adopt this supply chain reforms.
The Health Minister, Mr. Kwaku Agyemang-Manu called on members of the public to “leverage on the Global Standards to address challenges of data integrity and visibility of pharmaceutical products in a way that will enable healthcare providers to provide safe, quality pharmaceutical products and safe services to clients through identification and verification initiatives”.
