KABUL - The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) on Sunday formally launched “National Medical Products Authority (NMPA)” to help prevent expired medicines from being imported to the country.
Public Health Minister Ferozuddin Feroz said the authority had been constituted in to halt imports of low quality drugs, encourage domestically produced medicines and stop expired drug entry into the country.
He said until now different authorities had been functioning to monitor low quality drugs, but in future the NMPA would be a responsible platform dealing with issues related to expired and unhealthy drugs.
He hoped the newly-established authority would work effectively and might win support from the private sector to deal with the issue.
Currently Afghanistan imports 95 percent of medicines valued at $400 million from other countries and only five percent is produced at home, according to the minister.
The minister said 35 percent of drugs were imported from Pakistan, 25 percent from India, 15 percent from Iran and the rest from China, Bangladesh and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).(Pajhwok)