Initiative to support and enhance medicine quality assurance in Latin American/Caribbean

Representatives from 16 Latin American and Caribbean countries laid the foundation for a regional mechanism for South-South collaboration for quality assurance of medicines during a workshop held in Lima, Peru on November 11-13.

The event, coordinated by the Promoting the Quality of Medicines (PQM) program in the context of the Amazon Malaria Initiative (AMI), brought together officials from Medicines Regulatory Authorities (MRAs) and Official Medicines Control Laboratories (OMCLs), as well as representatives from selected regional Schools of Pharmacy, to explore possible sustainable mechanisms to implement South-South collaboration for the quality assurance of medicines, using technical and human resources available in the Americas region.

“PQM has been collaborating extensively with the Pan American Health Organization and USP, to support countries’ quality assurance and quality control systems in the region, in order to help ensure the quality of the medicines available to the population,” said Victor Pribluda, PQM manager of Latin American and Caribbean Programs.