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Local capacity improved to test illegal medical drugs
Guyana’s capacity to test for illegal medical drugs has been significantly boosted with strategic training support from Argentina. This move allowed for staffers of the Government Analyst Food and Drugs Department to be certified last Friday evening, having participated in a week-long medicine control project.
The project represents the third phase of a Caricom Project which saw Guyana being selected along with three other territories – Jamaica, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago – to be beneficiaries.
Six of the Certified Food and Drugs Department staffers display their certificates in the presence of officials at the ceremony Friday evening. From left, seated are: Dr Shamdeo Persaud, Adrianus Vlugman, Ambassador Luis Martino, Minister of Health, Dr Bheri Ramsaran, Dr Lucila Gutierrez and Marlan Cole.
According to Director of the Food and Drugs Department, Marlan Cole, the project was made possible by the Argentine Horizontal Corporation South/South and Triangular Corporation Fund (Fo.ar) and financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Argentina.
Support was also forthcoming from the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO). Representative of the Embassy of Argentina, Ambassador Luis Martino, and PAHO, Engineer Adrianus Vlugman, both attended a ceremony to certify the trained Food and Drugs workers. Both officials sought to emphasise the importance of the collaboration and committed to continue supporting Guyana in the quest to strengthen quality control of drugs.
The training project which covered areas of good laboratory practices was facilitated by Medical Expert, Dr Lucila Irurtia Gutierrez, of Argentina.
According to Cole, apart from the struggles with the regulatory requirements such as the Drug Registration and Control importation and permits “we still have to demonstrate capabilities to test the drugs to ensure that it is of the required standard.”
“If it is supposed to have 50 per cent active ingredients, it must have 50 per cent active ingredients and not only 30 or 20…” said Cole, who stressed that Guyana is now in a better position to address such challenges.
This in essence, Cole noted, will serve to regularise the pharmaceutical industry and facilitate trade in the process while safeguarding the health and wellbeing of consumers by ensuring that drugs of the requisite quality are available on the local market.
“This support therefore from the Argentine Government and PAHO is very timely and we can assure you that we will not stop here, but we will seek ways and possibilities of enhancing our cooperation with the Argentine Government.”
Also speaking at the forum was Chief Medical Officer, Dr Shamdeo Persaud, who underscored that the project is a very innovative one for Guyana. He disclosed that for many years the local health sector has struggled with the issue of ensuring that the population is provided, through the public health care system, with good quality medication.
According to him, in the past there were some arrangements, through the local Food and Drug Department, which has had its fair share of challenges in terms of lab capacity, the availability of all of the essential supplies to conduct work, and sometimes even in the technical capacities. This is however expected to be a thing of the past, since according to Dr Persaud, “this initiative has been able to bring to us, in a very consorted way, persons who can do these testings and deliver vital results to ensure our medicines are of a good quality.”
This is likely to see Guyana no longer having to reach out to the Region and even further afield to have its drugs tested.
Minister of Health, Dr Bheri Ramsaran, acknowledged that Guyana was in dire need of the support it has received even as he recognised the project as “another success in the South/South Cooperation.”
“This is yet another turning-point in relations in terms of Guyana unfolding its continental destiny. I want to read into a small thing, a bigger concept…cooperation between Argentina, Guyana and the Caribbean,” the Minister said.
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