January 2016
Honourable Chairperson, Distinguished Delegates,
Thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of the International Council of Nurses, the International Pharmaceutical Federation, the World Confederation for Physical Therapy, the World Dental Federation and the World Medical Association, which together form the World Health Professions Alliance (WHPA), representing more than 26 million health care professionals in over 130 countries.
We welcome the list of prioritised activities and we hope that they will be supported by adequate funding within the Programme budget for 2016-2017.
WHPA has for many years worked to support the combat against SSFFC through a series of activities aligned with the report. We therefore encourage WHO to also consider activities developed by the civil society.
For instance for Activity A, our alliance developed last year training materials for healthcare professionals entitled “All you need to know about spurious medicines”, in cooperation with the Indian associations of healthcare professions. The guidelines covered prevention, detection, and response to SSFC medical products.
The detection of counterfeits is facilitated through improved vigilance, empowering patients, increase competencies of regulators and health care professionals, and educating the public through new technologies. Detection only lead to protection when cases are shared. We therefore appreciate the efforts of WHO to share cases of SSFFC medicines via a global database and information systems.
Concerning Activity E, “to develop effective risk communication and awareness campaigns”, a number of national healthcare professionals‐led campaigns are available on our website and could serve as inspirations for future activities. Finally we recommend that appropriate considerations are also given to situations facilitating intrusion of SSFFC in the legitimate supply chain, such as medicines shortages (also discussed at agenda item 10.5).
Please be assured of the continuous support of healthcare professionals to fight against this threat towards the safety and health of patients.
Thank you for your attention.