RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Health Min­is­ter Lack­ram Bo­doe says the gov­ern­ment has tak­en a ma­jor step to­ward mod­ernising the coun­try’s phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal reg­u­la­to­ry sys­tem with the launch of a na­tion­al drug data­base, while urg­ing phar­ma­cists to re­main vig­i­lant as chal­lenges in the sec­tor per­sist.

The new on­line plat­form, called the Reg­u­lat­ed Med­i­cines and Sub­stances Por­tal, was launched by the Min­istry of Health in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Chem­istry, Food and Drugs Di­vi­sion. It al­lows the pub­lic to search for in­for­ma­tion on reg­is­tered phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal prod­ucts ap­proved for use in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Bo­doe de­scribed the ini­tia­tive as a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone in strength­en­ing over­sight with­in the health sec­tor.

“To­day marks an im­por­tant mile­stone in our col­lec­tive ef­fort to mod­ernise health sys­tems and strength­en reg­u­la­to­ry over­sight in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

Bo­doe ex­plained that every prod­uct list­ed on the data­base has been for­mal­ly au­tho­rised through the reg­u­la­to­ry process and pub­lished through of­fi­cial Gazette no­tices.

“This sys­tem has been de­signed and im­ple­ment­ed with strong safe­guards for da­ta pri­va­cy, se­cu­ri­ty, and gov­er­nance. For the pub­lic, the in­for­ma­tion avail­able through the min­istry’s web­site con­sists on­ly of ap­proved and pub­lish­able drug reg­is­tra­tion da­ta,” he said.

He added that the sys­tem will re­quire con­tin­ued col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween reg­u­la­tors and in­dus­try stake­hold­ers to re­main ef­fec­tive.

“It is through sus­tained col­lab­o­ra­tion that we will main­tain and strength­en the sys­tem. To­geth­er, we must en­sure the drug data­base re­mains an ac­tive tool, re­spon­sive to the evolv­ing needs of our health sec­tor and pro­tec­tive of the trust placed in us,” Bo­doe said.

Alyson Pouchet, Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal So­ci­ety (TP­STT), con­grat­u­lat­ed the min­istry on in­tro­duc­ing the dig­i­tal por­tal, not­ing that it rep­re­sents years of work by gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and in­dus­try stake­hold­ers to mod­ernise the reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work.

Pouchet said the plat­form digi­tis­es his­toric drug reg­is­tra­tion records that were pre­vi­ous­ly scat­tered across le­gal no­tices and archived doc­u­ments, mak­ing it eas­i­er to search thou­sands of reg­is­tered med­i­cines and im­prov­ing trans­paren­cy in the reg­u­la­to­ry process.

How­ev­er, she cau­tioned that the data­base does not re­place the pro­fes­sion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of phar­ma­cists.

She added that phar­ma­cists re­main the fi­nal safe­guard against sub­stan­dard or fal­si­fied med­i­cines and stressed that reg­u­la­to­ry over­sight at the coun­try’s ports of en­try is es­sen­tial to pro­tect­ing the na­tion­al drug sup­ply.

The de­vel­op­ment comes amid long­stand­ing con­cerns with­in the sec­tor about reg­u­la­to­ry ca­pac­i­ty and the role of the Phar­ma­cy Board of Trinidad and To­ba­go, which over­sees phar­ma­cy prac­tice and en­sures that med­i­cines sold in the coun­try meet le­gal and safe­ty stan­dards.

Pouchet not­ed that the TP­STT con­tin­ues to pro­mote best prac­tices through its month­ly Pur­ple Ta­ble Work­shops, where phar­ma­cists are en­cour­aged to re­quest reg­u­la­to­ry doc­u­men­ta­tion, in­clud­ing No­tices of Au­tho­ri­sa­tion, when dis­trib­u­tors of­fer un­fa­mil­iar prod­ucts.

She em­pha­sised that safe­guard­ing the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal sup­ply chain re­quires co­op­er­a­tion among reg­u­la­tors, dis­trib­u­tors, phar­ma­cists, and the wider pub­lic.