29 April 2022
MEDISAFE experience sharing meeting in Kenya
Action plan
29 April 2022
Work package no.5: Improving international and regional cooperation around identifying and combating trafficking of substandard and falsified medical products.
A regional experience sharing meeting on strengthening legal, regulatory and pharmaceutical systems took place in Nairobi, Kenya, on 25-29 April 2022. The event brought together 10 MEDISAFE project partner countries. The meeting consisted of a one-day plenary session, two days of experience sharing and two days of training.
A five-day regional meeting was held to share countries experiences on national systems to address substandard and falsified medicines and health products and on lessons learned and challenges faced. The event aims to improve the national responses in partner countries.
The partners countries were represented by the National Focal Points and national legal and pharmaceutical experts. The event was facilitated by MEDISAFE Key Experts and its Consortium members, namely CHMP (Humanitarian Center for Pharmacy Professions) and APROPHISP (Professional Association of Public Pharmacy Inspectors) and supported by experts from United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the Council of Europe on sections related to the MEDICRIME Convention.
Following the plenary session, which was attended by all participants, two thematic sessions took place simultaneously, one focused on the legal sector, and the other on the pharmaceutical sector.
The pharmaceutical experts group attended a training on supply chain security, pharmacovigilance and market surveillance and control. Following these sessions, participants were able to assess their national systems and will be able to advise their countries accordingly.
The legal experts, with the support of their National Focal Points, provided their technical analysis on their national legislation regarding substandard and falsified medicines and health products. They identified gaps in existing legislation and proposed a roadmap which included one of the following options:
The meeting produced concrete outputs in relation to the pharmaceutical and legal sectors. In addition to capacity building, the meeting helped to establish cooperation between partner countries and to build a network of experts. This will help to promote regional information sharing in the long-term.