Important Message from the Ministry of Health about Medicines Quality Control and Surveillance

#TurksandCaicos, August 9, 2021 – The Ministry of Health and Human Services (MoHHS) has partnered with the Medicines Quality Control and Surveillance Department (MQCSD) of the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) to be a part of their risk-based Post-Market Surveillance (PMS) Programme for medicines.

This partnership illustrates the MoHHS commitment to ensure the utilization of good quality, effective, and safe medicines within the TCI.

The PMS Programme will lend assistance to the TCI by testing and analysing medicines on the TCI market. As a result, the PMS Programme will support and strengthen the effectiveness of the TCI’s medicines regulatory system by:

• Providing data and information that will better inform the government on the appropriate and effective regulatory actions and strategies to implement (that will improve the availability of safe and essential good quality medicines), and
• Identifying possible substandard and falsified products/medicines in the TCI market.

This level of support will improve fair access to these medicines which are hallmarks of effective disease management/treatment. Therefore, the active surveillance and regulation of medicines – currently on the market – is essential.

The MoHHS views this initiative as a very significant step to strengthen the systems and capacities required to improve the effective monitoring of drug/patient safety and is currently in the process of submitting samples of medicines for testing and analysis.

The MoHHS is committed to patient safety and anticipates that this will positively impact the health and wellbeing of all TCI residents.

In light of this initiative, the MoHHS is also encouraging persons to report any adverse events – suffered from the use of medicines – via the MoHHS’ Adverse Drug Reaction Form found at https://gov.tc/docs/ADR.pdf. Consequently, suspected substandard and or falsified medicines can be flagged for testing and analysis.

For further information, please contact André Morgan, National Pharmacist at 338-3072 or amorgan@gov.tc