Ghana’s NEPP attracts Nigeria Pharmacy Council
A 10-MEMBER delegation from the Pharmacy Council of Nigeria (PCN) are currently in the country on a learning tour to the Pharmacy Council of Ghana (PCG) to ascertain how Ghana’s National Electronic Pharmacy Platform (NEPP) operates.
Advertisement
The tour is meant to assist the PCN gather first-hand information on the implementation and the operationalisation of the NEPP, to guide them in executing their own E-pharmacy, as well as foster collaboration between the two institutions.
The Nigerians’ visit makes it the third after the Rwandan and Kenyan councils visited Ghana earlier on the same mission
Meetings
As part of the week-long visit, the Nigeria delegation visited the Minister designate for Health, Dr Bernard Okoe-Boye, as well as the offices of the National Health Insurance Authority and the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana, among others.
The NEPP is a platform launched by the Pharmacy Council of Ghana with support from other health regulatory agencies under the Ministry of Health to monitor and facilitate safe and secure access to medications and pharmaceutical services in Ghana.
At a meeting with the Pharmacy Council, the Acting Registrar of the PCG, Dr Daniel Amaning Danquah, expressed satisfaction that the NEPP had attracted countries from the sub-region.
He explained that Ghana’s NEPP caught the attention of some countries after he made a presentation at a workshop for the Pharmacy Regulators Platform in the sub-region in Senegal recently, causing them to visit Ghana to inquire about the project.
“We have a common platform for all pharmacy regulators in the sub-region so there are 12 countries in the sub-region that meet regularly and these meetings are facilitated by the salient advisory group who have technical and financial support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,” he said.
Other Trending Stories
Comprehensiveness of NEPP
Dr Danquah also explained that the comprehensiveness of the platform to address every facet of the process was what caught the attention of many countries at the meeting.
“Kenya did it first but their system collapsed so at some point the government asked them to stop because they were having challenges at the courier model of the platform, where wrong medications were being delivered to different people”.
“Our system was able to comprehensively address that challenge so immediately after the meeting, Kenya visited Ghana to look at how we were able to resolve that delivery challenge,” the Acting Registrar of the PCG said.
“This means a lot to us and it urges us to keep focus and do more,” he added.
The Registrar of the PCN, Ibrahim Babashenu Ahmed, for his part, said his outfit had picked many lessons and was ready to introduce the E-Pharmacy platform in Nigeria.
“One thing I need to put on record is the fact that the Pharmacy Council of Nigeria has in recent times undertaken three study tours and each of this is manifesting positively in terms of transformation within the pharmaceutical regulatory landscape in Nigeria,” he said.
