Africa’s Poor Quality Drugs Influx Worrying – WHO

The African Regional Director of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Dr Matshidiso Rebecca Moeti, has said the inflow of poor quality drugs into Africa is affecting the quality of health care.

According to her, to reverse the trend, WHO is collaborating with governments, manufacturers and regulatory bodies in various countries to ensure that all medicines meet the requisite standard.

She was speaking to the media at the WHO country office in Accra on Wednesday, 25 April 2018 as part of her seven-day visit to Ghana.

She said they are exploring legal means “to stop and limit the illegal importation of medicines of poor quality” as it remains “one of the key challenges of quality health care in the African region”.

Explaining the state of mental health facilities in Africa, she said it was “one of the areas of health in our region that receives very little support in relation to what it needs and deserves and this is an issue all over I will say, in addition to having very few hospitals we also have very few psychiatric mental health specialists in the health system of our country”.

In view of that she added that: “WHO is promoting and training mental health care skills personnel” to change the current situation.

Source: ClassFMonline