Access to quality health products represents a foundational driving element of African Medicines Regulatory Harmonization (AMRH) overall health system functionality. As representatives from national and regional economic communities (RECs) from across Africa, we declare our support and commitment to undertake actions that will improve the availability of quality medicines, ensure greater visibility of products within the supply chain, and enable improved patient care.
Adoption of existing global supply chain standards for pharmaceutical traceability will help achieve these goals through stronger regional regulatory harmonization, global and national interoperability of supply chains and supporting information systems. These measures will also improve patient protection against substandard and falsified (SF) medicines. Pharmaceutical traceability will result in strengthening the health status of our citizens and in turn, improve the socio-economic development of our countries.
In recognition of unique national and regional environments and in full respect for national sovereignty, we signify our intent to explore and move toward implementation of pharmaceutical traceability policies, processes, and systems that will:
As national and RECs, we will work with one another, development partners, and the private sector to:
As part of our national and regional strategic planning:
While different national efforts will move at different rates of exploration and implementation, this Call to Action acknowledges and proclaims our intention as participants in the GS1 Africa Regional Healthcare Conference in Lagos, Nigeria to steadfastly pursue pharmaceutical traceability as a key measure toward overall health systems strengthening efforts to ultimately ensure protections of patient.