MEDISAFE facilitates the exchange of good practices in Tanzania to improve the detection of SFM

MEDISAFE organized a technical seminar in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, on 4 and 5 March 2020. This technical seminar aimed at improving the ability to detect substandard and falsified medical (SFM) products by strengthening national capacities and ensuring a secure pharmaceutical supply chain, from medicinal product registrations to investigation methodologies, with a view to enhance regional cooperation and information exchange.

Following the MEDISAFE fact finding mission in April 2019, this technical seminar took place within the Tanzanian 5-year national action plan (2018-2023) to combat SFM products in close cooperation with the Tanzanian Food and Drug Agency (TFDA), which has a central role in the implementation of the national action plan as well as in the implementation of MEDISAFE activities in the country.

This training was specifically based on case studies to build participants’ capacities to identify and detect SFM. The main objectives of this seminar are to strengthen inspection and law enforcement capacity and to improve multi-stakeholders’ engagement through the capacity to:

– Detect suspicious documentation, containers, package of SFM products

– Detect frauds, suspicious dysfunctions in the medicine market

– Ensure the exchange of information between the different stakeholders regarding the legal
..and illegal medicines chain

– Detect fraudulent document according to the Guidelines of Good Distribution Practices of medicinal products

The closing ceremony was attended by the French Ambassador of Tanzania, H.E. Mr. Frédéric Clavier, who emphasizes that, projects such as MEDISAFE were essential in addressing the production and trafficking of falsified medicines. The definition of a national strategy on SFM needs to include the training of decisive stakeholders and the raise of the population awareness through a holistic approach that includes the support of the European Union, the French government, Expertise France but also the private sector, such as Sanofi.