According to the Chief Executive Officer of the FDA, Mrs Delese Mimi Darko, her outfit is partnering with the Pharmacy Council to boost their surveillance.

Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show on Tuesday, Mrs Darko said a joint task force will be formed in coming days to champion that agenda.

[contextly_sidebar id=”PhlAs8qhkqTEVpfzD0gxyGzVrKCQ5vYg”]“We are collaborating with the Pharmacy council because they are responsible for the practice of pharmacy and also with the health facilities regulatory agency which also registers pharmacies and chemicals and licensed medicines sellers. We are forming a task team in the next few days. They are doing what they are doing but we think that we should actually come together and move out wider within the regions.”

The FDA CEO said the task force will, among other things, visit possible places that Tramadol is sold, adding that the team will also “visit chemical shops because they [chemical shops] would be obtaining some [of the product] legally, some as well may be obtained at places that we are not aware of.”

Tramadol is a pain relief drug, which according to medical experts, functions like heroin and can cause psychotic problems as well as damage vital organs in the human body if abused.

Recent surveys have shown that the drug is being abused by some youths as well as some market women, drivers and in some cases students.

The Head of Substance Abuse at FDA, Olivia Boateng said on the Citi Breakfast Show last week that FDA is intensifying its surveillance to curb the smuggling of Tramadol in the country.

According to the FDA, its investigation shows that most of the drug comes into the country through unapproved routes making it difficult for them to track its final destination.

“Our investigations revealed that there are people, who were sourcing it from unapproved routes, not from the pharmacy and hospitals. We have intensified monitoring at the ports of entry, trying to curb it through the unauthorized routes,” Olivia Boateng added.

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By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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This follows reports from the Volta Region that four people had died after consuming the puffer fish while several others were hospitalized.

The Head of Fish Health Unit of the Fisheries Commission, Dr Peter Ziddah in an interview with Citi News urged the public to be extra careful when it comes to the Puffer fish as it is even more poisonous than Cyanide (sodium or potassium cyanide used as a poison or in the extraction of gold and silver).

[contextly_sidebar id=”xKdjTsqbjIXe2aT4qSGjbHs8ZMN8gFHE”]He also said the Commission has not given anyone the clearance to sell the puffer fish to the public.

He said “what happened with regards to the puffer fish in the Volta Region is purely a public health issue. We need to warn people about what to eat and what not to eat.”

“In this case we are talking about processing, people need to learn how to process their catches before eating. The Puffer fish is more poisonous than cyanide. You need some special skills to be able to process that fish to eat,” Dr Ziddah added.

“Like in Asia before you sell this fish you are certified, here who certifies who? We don’t certify people to sell this fish so for the public I would advise they should just go off it, not buy it at all and don’t eat it because you don’t know where it is coming from,” he stated.

Education on Poisonous Puffer to Intensify
The Food and Drugs Authority a few days ago said that it is in talks with the Ministry of Fisheries and other agencies to intensify the education on the dangers of consuming the said fish.

When he spoke to Citi News’, James Lartey, the Public Relations Officer for the Authority said the FDA officers “together with the fisheries department in the Volta Region and the Municipal Assembly embarked on an exercise where they visited a number of markets and all the markets they went to did not have any sample of that fish.”

“According to our officer, the women at the market were saying they know it to be it’s a poisonous fish so it is not a fish that is sold there. I was told they were already aware of that particular fish but there is the need for further education so I am sure when they meet, they will be able to trash all these things and strategize on communications so they will be able to better inform the people on that fish,” Mr. Lartey said.

It still remains unclear how the fish may have contributed to the said deaths, however, some residents have attributed it to the ill-preparation of the fish before consumption.

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By: Rita Mensah/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Don’t eat ‘poisonous’ Puffer fish – Fisheries Commission appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

“The FDA wishes to inform the general public especially the media that the information is false and should be ignored”.

A statement issued and signed by the Acting Chief Executive, Delese Darko said the European Union (EU) has not ranked Ghana as the sixth for fake drug producer in 2013 by the EU as being speculated in the media.

[contextly_sidebar id=”7P30efSIBkBBHZN24k53NdcbLvUdm3LH”]“The FDA wishes to assure the public that adequate regulatory measures are in place in line with international best practices to ensure public health and safety and these measures are regularly reviewed to ascertain and improve their continued effectiveness”, it said.

The statement assured the public that the FDA’s laboratory was an ISO 17025 accredited and had the largest scope of accreditation in the whole of Africa.

It added that the FDA has a safety monitoring system for drugs (pharmacovigilance) which had been highly rated in sub-Saharan Africa and was part of a consortium designated as a Regional Centre of Regulatory Excellence (RCORE) in Pharmacovigilance by NEPAD and the African Medicines Regulatory Harmonization.

The FDA is also designated (by the same international bodies) as a RCORE in Medicine Evaluation and Registration.

“With the stringent regulatory measures put by FDA, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has on several occasions recommended several countries on the continent to understudy Ghana FDA’s regulatory systems”.

The FDA said it has come to its notice that there were some media publications describing Ghana as being ranked sixth by the UU for having poisonous medicines on its market following seizures of fake medicines on the borders by EU customs in relation to suspected violations of Intellectual Property Rights.

The said publication is not only full of factual inaccuracies but also misleading and dangerous in that it seeks to create unnecessary panic and erosion of confidence in the ability of the local pharmaceutical industry to produce quality, safe and efficacious medicines; as well as the ability of the FDA to protect public health and safety by way of ensuring the availability of quality, safe and efficacious medicines in the market.

The seizures involved assorted products including luxury goods such as watches, sunglasses and clothing. Ghana’s bit was on detention of large shipments of batteries not fake medicines as alleged in the publication.

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Source: GNA

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