THE Tanzania Medicines and Medical Devices Authority (TMDA) has urged the importers of pharmaceutical products in the country to comply with the legal and guidelines requirements to fast-track the issuance of the permits and registration.
The remark was made on Friday by the Authority’s Director of Human and Veterinary Medicines, Dr Yonah Mwalwisi when was officiating the stakeholders’ workshop on the pharmaceutical products in Dar es Salaam.
The workshop intended to enhance the importation and registration of products including antiretrovirals (ARVs) for public and private sectors in the country.
“In facing various challenges regarding drug importation and registration delay…importers should adhere to the legal requirements for importing drugs and submit the required application documents to TMDA to speed up the issuance of permits and registration,” Dr Mwalwisi underlined.
He further noted that the law requires the imported pharmaceutical products to be manufactured by a factory that has been inspected by the TMA or should be sourced from the countries with a stringent regulatory authority (SRA).
“Imported pharmaceutical products must be fit for human consumption, good quality, safe and not prohibited in the country of origin”, he insisted.
Moreover, he added that the law requires that any person dealing with the importation of the products must be registered by TFDA including the imported pharmaceutical products.
In a related development, Dr Mwalwisi unveiled that the main objective of the meeting was to discuss various challenges that affect the procurement process of medical products in the country.
“Through this platform, we will receive feedback from our stakeholders and customers on various issues including the challenges that are to be addressed by the authority so that we can continue creating a conducive environment for doing business in pharmaceutical products in Tanzania”.
More so, he said, the forum also intended to create awareness among the stakeholders on various emerging requirements brought by pharmaceutical technological changes.
“We want to impart that awareness to our stakeholders so that they can clearly understand and implement those new requirements …but also, we are reminding them of the existing requirements since we intend to protect the public against unsafe and poor-quality medical products,” he emphasized.
