Heads of NMRAs of OIC countries discuss medicines and vaccines self reliance

Indonesia's National Agency for Drug and Food Control (BPOM) held the First Meeting of the Heads of National Medicines Regulatory Authorities (NMRAs) from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) member states in Jakarta, on November 21-22, which discussed a collaboration to help improve the regulatory capacity and the production of pharmaceutical industry in achieving self-reliance and accessibility of medicines including vaccines in the OIC member states.

The diverse condition of political and economies in OIC member states made several limitation of access towards medicine and vaccines in some of OIC member states. This is especially the case in conflicting and low-income countries, where mortality rates due to diseases are still at a high level. Moreover, infectious diseases are still a big problem for a number of the OIC member states.

Indonesia has been a member of the Pharmaceutical Inspection Cooperation Scheme (PICs) along with 49 other countries, in which only four OIC member states are included, namely, Indonesia, Malaysia, Turkey and Iran. The Indonesian membership in PICs proves the ability of Indonesia's BPOM as a regulator that ensures medicines produced by Indonesia meet the international standards and are recognized worldwide, and thus can be exported.