ASEAN health ministers discuss measures against fake medicine

The Vietnamese delegation at the plenary session of the 14th ASEAN Health Ministers’ Meeting  (Source: VietnamPlus)

Siem Reap (VNA) - Health Minister Nguyen Thi Kim Tien led a Vietnamese delegation to attend the 14th ASEAN Health Ministers’ Meeting in Siem Reap, Cambodia, on August 29 - 30.

Prior to the plenary session of the meeting, a retreat of the ASEAN health ministers was held, focusing on measures to fight fake and poor-quality drugs.

During the session, the ASEAN health ministers discussed and shared their countries’ experiences and solutions to combat fake and poor quality drugs.

In her speech, Minister Tien pointed out the three biggest challenges in the fight against fake and poor quality drugs.

According to the minister, the trend of trade globalization and the participation in multilateral and bilateral free trade agreements (FTA) have created favourable conditions for import-export activities and goods trading, including medicine, but at the same time  also pose risks and difficulties in managing the transportation, trading, and import-export of fake and poor-quality goods.

The rapid development of technology, including printing and packaging production technology, has boosted production but also facilitated falsification of documents, packages and labels, which is more sophisticated and harder to detect.

It is very difficult or having no signs to identify and distinguish the real and fake medicine by sensory and conventional analytical methods, Tien said.

Along with the development of internet infrastructure and applications, the convenience and accessibility of all people with the internet make selling medicine in the interest more and more popular, while the system of related legal documents is still incomplete, inconsistent and has not kept up with the development of technology, Tien noted.

In the face of the above-mentioned challenges, in recent years, Vietnam has taken many groups of concerted solutions, focusing on improving institutions and make the management of drug quality more transparent.

Minister Tien said ASEAN member nations’ pharmaceutical management authorities need to enhance cooperation through strengthening activities and establishing more mutual recognition agreements related to pharmaceutical production, as well as effectively implement existing agreements.

Speaking at the plenary session of the 14^th ASEAN Health Ministers’ Meeting, Minister Tien shared challenges facing Vietnam in its 10-year health reform process, which aims to improve the national health system’s operation efficiency in order to provide better healthcare services for the people.

She affirmed Vietnam's commitment to implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development towards the goal of universal healthcare coverage.

Ministers to the meeting adopted a joint statement, agreeing to continue maintaining and utilizing the benefits from the implementation of the ASEAN Health Development Programme after 2015, towards building new action plans and projects for the 2021-2025 period.

The ministers also pledged to promote healthy and positive aging, and acknowledged that the establishment of the ASEAN Centre for Active Ageing and Innovation (ACAI) would actively support policies for the aging, and strengthen capacity and cooperation among the ASEAN member countries in this field.

The meeting also approved the contents of ASEAN Leaders' draft Declaration on ASEAN Vaccine Security and Self-Reliance, which will be announced by ASEAN leaders at the 35^th ASEAN Summit to be held in Thailand in November 2019.

On the occasion, Minister Tien had a meeting with her Cambodian counterpart Mam Bunheng, during which the two sides discussed how to expand cooperation and between Vietnam and Cambodia, especially collaboration in fighting and eliminating malaria until 2025.

Health Minister Nguyen Thi Kim Tien meets Dr. Takeshi Kasai –Regional Director of the  World Health Organisation forWestern Pacific (Photo: VietnamPlus)

Bunheng asked the Vietnamese Ministry of Health to continue supporting personnel training and medical checkup for Cambodian people in border areas in the time to come.

Minister Tien and the Vietnamese delegation worked with representatives from the Siem Reap hospital. The two sides pledged to enhance cooperation in the future.

She also held a bilateral meeting with Malaysian Health Minister Dzulkefly Ahmad to discuss how to further strengthen health cooperation between the two nations in the near future.

On the sidelines of the 14^th ASEAN Health Ministers’ Meeting, Tien met with Dr. Takeshi Kasai, Regional Director of the World Health Organisation for the Western Pacific, during which she appreciated technical and financial assistance by the WHO for Vietnam’s health sector in recent times, especially in building policies on health care and improvement, and disease prevention for Vietnamese people.

Minister Tien and her Indonesian counterpart Dr. Farid Moeloek signed a memorandum of understanding on health cooperation between the two health ministries.

The two sides agreed to foster cooperation in areas such as disease control and prevention; pharmaceuticals and medical equipment; health services; public health; research and development of medical and traditional medicine.

The two ministers also agreed to meet at least once a year to review the implementation of this MoU./.