Pharmacy Board acts to curtail sale of counterfeit drugs.

Monrovia, Liberia, August 26, 2024—The Liberia Pharmacy Board intensifies its campaign to combat counterfeit and substandard medicines in the Liberian market.

The Pharmacy Board recently held a two-day workshop in Monrovia to review and validate key policy documents aimed at achieving best pharmaceutical pharmacy practices and combating counterfeit and substandard medicines in the country.

The event brought together various stakeholders, including representatives from the World Health Organization (WHO), USAID, the Liberia Medical and Dental Council (LMDC), the Nursing and Midwifery Board, pharmaceutical importers, and the Chief Pharmacy of Liberia. The goal was to develop and enforce policy documents governing pharmacy practices throughout the country.

The workshop emphasized several issues, including legal mandates in key regulatory areas, partnership networking, internship programs, and the pharmaceutical workforce. It also addressed ongoing activities to protect, preserve, and promote public health safety and to advance the Ministry of Health’s efforts concerning pharmaceutical markets.

According to the WHO, counterfeit drugs are a significant and growing problem in Liberia, with one in ten medical products on the market being substandard or falsified, leading to thousands of deaths, primarily in vulnerable communities.

Despite various efforts to address the proliferation of fake medicines, the issue persists. In late July 2013, the Health Ministry and the Pharmaceutical Board of Liberia intensified monitoring tours nationwide to curb counterfeit drug sales. Although estimating the scale of the problem is challenging, it is believed that counterfeit drugs for pneumonia and malaria may kill around 250,000 children annually.

Some of these drugs are poorly manufactured, expired, or distributed by criminal gangs, making the counterfeit drug industry valued at approximately $200 billion a highly lucrative year.

In early 2017, the LMHRA, NMCP, and PQM conducted a nine-day joint post-marketing surveillance exercise in two counties. This exercise resulted in the confiscation of over 200 packs of falsified medications and the removal of 82,800 tablets of AMT from the market. Later that year, with PQM’s support, the LMHRA confiscated approximately $68,000 USD (over 8 million Liberian dollars) worth of unregistered and falsified products. Ironically, 90% of medicines in Liberia are sourced from India and China.

However, speaking at the workshop’s opening, the Chairman of the Liberia Healthcare and Medicine Regulatory Authority Board, Dr. Luke Bawo, who led the seminar, acknowledged the numerous challenges encountered in fulfilling their duties.

However, he maintained that confronting these challenges directly is essential to confronting reality and finding solutions to the problem of selling substandard medicines in Liberia.

He says more people are becoming interested in selling pharmaceutical products in the Liberian market.

This growing interest has led to an increase in individuals looking to import and distribute pharmaceuticals in Liberia, resulting in 60% of pharmaceutical products having questionable quality. He attributed these issues to the body’s limited regulatory support and technical capabilities.

He emphasized that the body continues to receive donations due to support from donors who are aware of these challenges.

The Chairman called for a return to the drawing board to thoroughly address these problems and better support Liberians relying on their scientific judgments.

He also highlighted issues related to pharmacy practice quality in community clinics and hospitals, noting that many clinics lack proper pharmacy involvement in patient therapeutic management. He expressed uncertainty about whether even 5% of clinics in Liberia have well-trained staff.

Many pharmacies and clinics are owned by businessmen primarily interested in profit, exacerbating these issues. Thus, the workshop aimed to develop and enforce policy documents to improve pharmacy practices.

He pointed out that public health laws have been in place for decades, but fewer than fifty percent of them are implemented in relation to pharmacy practice. He emphasized that while they are not opposed to foreign practitioners, it is crucial to ensure that employees in clinics and hospitals have the necessary skills and training.

Drawing a comparison with Guinea, which once faced similar problems but improved through the West African Medicine Harmonization Program, he stressed the need for Liberia to avoid falling into the same pattern. He emphasized the development of policy documents and practical implementation strategies.

Dr. Bawo remains hopeful that the policies developed will be robust enough to tackle the issue of falsified medicines and ensure that those handling pharmaceuticals are well-trained. According to WHO statistics, 70% of residents in Liberia visit pharmacies before going to hospitals.

Also, Dr. Ocan Charles, Health Systems Advisor at the WHO Liberia Office, praised the workshop’s significance and stressed the importance of reviewing and validating these key documents.

He underscored the need for the availability of essential medicines, vaccines, and other supplies to deliver quality health services in Liberia and emphasized that without these essentials, achieving universal health coverage and other health goals will be impossible.

Dr. Charles stressed that while Liberia has already spent six years on the 2030 agenda timeline, more effort is required to meet the 2030 agenda and SDG 3 targets. He called for validating, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating the policy documents developed during the workshop.

He noted that while Liberia can develop high-quality policies, they often remain unimplemented. Therefore, following up, organizing resources, and ensuring effective implementation and monitoring is essential. The WHO remains committed to supporting Liberia in this journey.

Liberia Medical and Dental Services also expressed hope that these key policy documents will ensure that medicines reach remote parts of Liberia and improve the quality of hospital care nationwide.

Meanwhile, most of the participants during the workshop expressed hope that the development of these policies and instruments will end the health sector’s many challenges. Editing by Jonathan Browne