E-DRUG: Access to Medicines in Southern Africa (3)
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[As mentioned before, the Pacific Island Countries have a closed email information exchange where they can share all the sorts of information mentioned below. It is very helpful. Beverley Snell- Moderator]
Hi MR Sefali
Apologies for my late response.
The question of registration status has been raised a number of times
by respondents to my email. It seems that this information does not
exist in one, searchable database and this is something we are looking
into. Another issue that was mentioned was the question of
availability from local suppliers. My understanding is that it is very
difficult to know which medicines are available from which suppliers.
In addition, drugs are usually listed by their brand names and not
their generic names. Is this a problem in your experience? Would a
searchable database of local suppliers with their products listed by
their generic names be a useful tool?
I am talking of something more or less similar to WHO-Prequalification Project for HIV/AIDs products.
Secondly, information sharing Hub will be very Essential especially in the
areas of BAD PRACTICEs so that if Supplier A defaults in of the SADC Member
Country, that Supplier A should know that chances of getting "ACTION" from
all the SADC countries is there.
This is a very interesting point. Have you found that this is a common
occurrence? How do procurement agencies currently share information
about bad experiences with suppliers? Do you think that rating system
with comments provided by procurement agencies about their experiences
would help in the decision making process?
Thank you very much for you input. As mentioned in my initial post, we
are interested in providing an information portal that will alleviate
information asymmetries through-out the entire supply chain so that
all stakeholders are able to make more informed decisions. Your
comments above fit perfectly within this mandate and I would be
interested in any more that you might have.
Regards
Adi Eyal
Data Manager: SARPAM
tel: +27 21 685 1846
mobile: +27 78 014 2469
skype: adieyalcas
Adi Eyal <adi@sarpam.net>