AU pushs establishment of African Medicines Agency

A two-day meeting of the Task Team established to facilitate operationalization of the African Medicines Agency (AMA) wrapped up on Wednesday.

In its meeting held June 7-8 at the AU Headquarters in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa, the Task Team dwelt upon issues related to roadmap for accelerating implementation of key milestones to the launch of AMA.

African Ministers of Health in April 2014 agreed to establish an African Medicines Agency that is intended to be the single regulatory agency providing oversight on medical products circulating in the African Market.

The AMA is expected to serve as a catalyst for stronger regulatory oversight to curtail counterfeit products, enable competitiveness for locally produced medicines particularly of drugs for diseases that disproportionately affect Africa.

Janet Byaruhanga, an official at the AU Social Affairs Department, told Xinhua that the meeting looked into the draft legal and institutional framework towards the establishment of the Agency.

According to Janet, the Task Team is on track in facilitating the establishment of AMA, and she expressed hope that the Agency would be launched by the end of 2018.

"We are going to also look at the business plan that has been drafted which the AMA would be utilizing if it gets launched successfully by the end of 2018," she said. Endit