Africa-Press – Uganda. The leadership of Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) has told government to stop importing drugs which are locally manufactured to protect and boost the development of the local pharmaceutical industries in the continent.
Speaking during the visit to CIPLA Quality Chemical Industries in Kampala on Monday, Mr Wamkele Mene, the AfCFTA executive secretary, said they intend to start manufacturing their own drugs to control diseases.
Mr Wamkele said this plan will be expedited as the African Medicines Agency (UMA) headquartered in Kigali , Rwanda will be operational by the end of this year. The agency is mandated to enforce the above ban in African countries under AfCFTA.
“We have been discussing with the CEO how we can establish an integrated market with individual centres of excellence across the continent. Not everybody can produce pharmaceuticals. We have identified pharmaceuticals as one of the priorities. We have to focus on specialisation and leverage on the large African market,” he said.
Asked to explain the mandate of the African Medicines Agency, he said the agency will be charged with the mandate to coordinate research, approval of drug and vaccine development by African researchers so that African countries start manufacturing their own drugs and vaccines to avoid the situation during Covid 19 where African countries had to wait for developed countries to stockpile enough doses of the vaccines before they could get the surplus to African countries.
He said when it is operational, AMA will ensure that the principal of the Rules of Origin is applied to all medicines in the continent where all the drugs manufactured within Africa are given unlimited access to any market within the continent but those which are manufactured from outside the continent, are allowed into the market but at a much higher cost.
The Chairman of Cipla Quality Chemicals, Mr Emmanuel Katongole, welcomed the development, saying during one of their meetings in London recently, they were advised to explore continental regional trading blocks to expand their markets. But one of the biggest challenge they have been facing is unfair competition from China and India who sell drugs cheaply.
“They do this for some reason. When you go to bid to supply, you find some countries giving out the products for free and the free indirect subsidy is very bad for big pharmaceutical industries. When we started manufacturing, some big company wanted to us to stop because they were giving us free mosquito nets for five years,” he said.
Asked how the imported ARVs and malaria drugs are affecting their operations currently, Mr Ajay Kumar, the managing director of CIPLA Quality Chemicals, said they have been forced to lower their production capacity as much as they are exporting to close to 20 African countries, but they would be happy if government enforced the ban because of the taxes they pay and the Ugandans that they employ.
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