Medication to be dispensed under stricter regulations: SAHPRA

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The South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) says it’s developing a plan to force pharmacies and other bodies that dispense medicine to digitally record the identity numbers of people who have been given medications, that includes codeine which is used in pain relief medicines and cough mixtures.

The plan comes in response to high levels of codeine abuse particularly amongst the youth.

SAHPRA Inspectorate and Regulatory Compliance Manager, Mokgadi Fafudi: “We had to, as stakeholders meet in the industry to see where the loopholes are why are these going into the enlisted market, why are supplies issued incorrectly when there are laws, when there are professionals to safeguard this. But still, we are seeing this problem and this is also going through our bodies. We need a centralised database where we will be collecting data so that we can prevent, detect and respond immediately when we detect that there is a misuse, overuse and abuse.”

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