Guyana participated in the recent 7th Meeting of Member State Mechanism on Substandard and Falsified (SF) medical products, which took place from the 27th to the 30th November and will step up its fight against fake and substandard drugs.
The meeting was hosted at the headquarters of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland and Director of the Government Analyst-Food and Drug Department (GA-FDD), Marlan Cole, was Guyana’s representative at the event.
According to a GA-FDD press release, the WHO meeting targeted issues associated with SF medical products entering the global supply chain, particularly in middle and low-income countries. This problem was highlighted in a study of the public health and socioeconomic impact of SF “fake” medical products published by WHO in 2017 and reports received by the WHO’s Global Surveillance Monitoring System (GSMS) for SF “fake” medical products. The surveillance system was launched in July 2013.