PHARMACEUTICAL ASSOCIATION HOLDS OUTREACH PROGRAMME (PAGE 32)

THE Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of Ghana (PMAG) undertook a medical outreach programme in Accra at the weekend to assure Ghanaians that locally manufactured drugs are free from health hazards.
As part of the outreach programme, doctors and nurses from the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital administered treatment to 997 sick people at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle in Accra.
Some of the ailments of common occurrence that the doctors treated included worms infestation, hypertension, stomach ache, fever and chicken pox.
Dr Michael Agyekum Addo, the Chief Executive of Kama Industries and President of PMAG, said the association had contributed drugs worth GH¢2,500 for the outreach programme.
He said the pharmaceutical companies in the country were using very modern machines and their drugs were being manufactured under the best hygienic conditions which could be verified by the regulatory authorities.
He, therefore, urged Ghanaians to disabuse their minds of the notion that imported drugs were safer and more potent than locally manufactured ones.
He explained that what was more assuring was that local drug manufacturing companies could be sued for compensation when something untoward happened to patients after taking any of the locally manufactured drugs, while foreign manufacturers could not be sued because they could not be easily traced.
He said the association employed more than 5,000 workers in the pharmaceutical industries.
He said Ghana and Nigeria had formed the West African Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (WAPMA) to pool resources to service the huge regional market, since, apart from the two countries, the other countries in the sub-region depended on imported pharmaceuticals.
Dr Addo appealed to the government to help pharmaceutical industries to capture the market in the sub-region by waiving some of the taxes and utility tariffs for those industries.
He said those tax waivers could assist the industries to produce drugs at cheaper prices for the domestic market, as well as for export to earn foreign exchange for the country.