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E-DRUG Subject: Expiry dates/dating of Pharmaceuticals
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[Moderators Comment: Welcome to Murtada Sesay, for a long time the President
of the Commonwealth Pharmacy Association and a field worker in Sierra Leone.
He is now working in Geneva on malaria and other interesting topics! I hope
that all EDM staff are on the E-DRUG list! Richard Laing]
I finally made it to e-drug (many thanks to Wilbert Bannenberg), and on a
subject I was interested in years ago!
When I published my work on expiry dates in Sierra Leone in 1994(cited in
Naomi's dissertation), it was in professional reaction to stark realities
not
conjecture.
Two things were happening in the country then:
(1)Consumers and professionals were using these products.
(2) There was no apparent consistency in policy of dating by industry.
Over the years when I have engaged various parties in discussions on this
subject, each attempts to justify their positions.
I really hope that Naomi's work will generate the discussions and ultimate
resolution, be it science and/or management, of what is still a rather
unsatisfactory and unacceptable situation.
In the meantime, I can only imagine that the interface between wealth and
health
is still a very turbulent one indeed!
Murtada M Sesay
Essential Drugs and other Medicines Department
WHO
Geneva
Switzerland
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