Ghana, has been acknowledged by the World Health Organisaition (WHO), for achieving Maturity Level 3 of the Organisation’s global benchmarking tool for measuring the performances of regulatory systems.
Director-General of the WHO, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus who made the acknowledgement, said the achievement was made through the WHO Listed Authorities initiative in 2020.
This, he said meant that Ghana had a stable and well-functioning regulatory system, operating at an advanced level of performance, and would in future be able to become a reference agency for issuing marketing authorizations in Africa and beyond.
Dr Ghebreyesus was speaking at the opening of the World Health Assembly meeting currently underway in Geneva, Switzerland to build a global consensus for addressing the health needs of the world.
Dr Ghebreyesus said the WHO was also supporting the African Union to establish the Africa Medicines Agency, to increase regulatory oversight and access to safe, efficacious and affordable medical products across the continent.
He explained that on access to medicines, the WHO had given Emergency Use Listing to seven vaccines and 28 in vitro diagnostics for COVID-19, which had allowed 101 countries to issue their own regulatory authorizations.
On pricing of medicines, Director-General of the WHO said “We published new pricing policy guidelines, to increase the affordability of medicines, and we supported Small Island Developing States to sign a pooled procurement agreement for health products, to improve the prices at which they can buy medicines, vaccines and other products”
Meanwhile, the Chief Executive Officer of Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) Mrs Delesi Mimi Darko has confirmed the acknowledgement by the World Health Organisaition (WHO), saying it was a welcoming news.
She noted that Ghana proudly achieved the landmark in 2020, and that the Authority was now an internationally recognised body for issuing market authorisation of products.
