Ghana bolsters medicines regulatory system, guarantees product quality

This makes Ghana the second country in the WHO African Region to attain this regulatory level. Evaluations of Ghana Food and Drugs Authority (FDA), the national regulatory body for medicines, were carried out in 2014, 2015 and later in 2019 using the WHO Global Benchmarking Tool.

At a brief ceremony to officially announce this and hand over the official letter from WHO communicating this achievement, the Acting Country Representative for WHO in Ghana, Dr. Neema Kimambo congratulated the Government of Ghana for this achievement and challenged the FDA to work hard to sustain the gains and to reach the ultimate; which is Maturity Level 4. She said, Ghana has strengthened its medicines regulatory system to ensure safety, quality and effectiveness of medical products manufactured, imported or distributed within the country.

She indicated that Ghana’s achievement reaffirms the collaboration between WHO and the government towards realizing the targets of universal health coverage and sustainable development goals.

“Ghana and Tanzania are the only two of WHO African Region’s 47 countries to have attained a Level 3 ranking. Tanzania achieved the classification in November 2018. WHO is working with countries in the region to improve the performance of their national regulatory systems and facilitate comprehensive oversight of medical products”. She added

Dr. Kimambo said that WHO was proud of Ghana’s achievements and will continue to support medicine regulation by developing internationally recognized norms, standards and guidelines, and by providing technical assistance and training to enable countries to implement global guidelines to meet their specific health needs.

The Chief Executive Officer of the FDA, Mrs. Delese Mimi Darko said that the benchmarking process has been very stringent and long, and salutes all her staff for their hard work and resilience in ensuring this milestone achievement.

The Minister for Health, Hon. Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, who received the official letter on behalf of the Government and people of Ghana, said that the government over the year has invested in strengthening regulatory systems in Ghana and is happy that the FDA has given value that transcends the whole of Africa. 

"The President and the Government of Ghana is proud of this achievement.  Ghanaians must continue to have confidence in the FDA because their only agenda is to keep Ghanaians safe and that would be pursued without fear or favour” he noted.

He also made a passionate appeal to other regulatory agencies to strategically partner the FDA to learn and adapt best practices.

Present at the brief handing over ceremony were Director for Technical Coordination at the Ministry of Health, Dr Martha Gyansa-Lutterodt, Directors of the Ministry of Health, WHO staff, FDA staff and Board of Directors as well as a cross section of the Media.

There are four levels of regulatory systems classification starting from Level 1, where only some elements of regulation exist, and up to Level 4 corresponding to the advanced regulatory system. Level 3 indicates that the system is well-functioning and integrates all required elements to guarantee its stable performance.