(Source: Health Policy Watch)
From the newsletter
Over the past three months, nearly $2 million has been committed to a total of four projects that strengthen Africa’s medicines regulatory systems, according to a new Healthcare Rising project tracker. The four initiatives will modernise drug oversight through digital tools, artificial intelligence, improved pharmaceutical vigilance and collaboration.
Funded largely by the Gates Foundation, the projects will be implemented by organisations including the African Union Development Agency–New Partnership for Africa’s Development (AUDA-NEPAD) and the University of the Western Cape.
The largest project is the WHO initiative to strengthen Africa’s regulatory systems through continent-wide harmonisation in medicine quality oversight.
More details
The WHO is currently implementing two funded projects, each $500,000 to strengthen medical regulation. The first will run for over 25 months to improve access to safe and effective drugs through harmonised frameworks. The second WHO project will run for over 23 months aims to deepen collaboration with AUDA-NEPAD, enhancing pharma quality vigilance and advancing African Medicines Agency (AMA) objectives to align continental regulation with global best practice.
Supporting this effort, AUDA-NEPAD is implementing a project over 11 months to boost smart safety surveillance systems, ensuring new medicines and vaccines are safely introduced through stronger regulations. The Wits Health Consortium is also providing AUDA-NEPAD with technical expertise in pharma compliance in another project.
Stronger regulatory systems address one of the root causes of antimicrobial resistance, the unchecked circulation and misuse of poor-quality or counterfeit antibiotics that fuel resistant infections. With the climate crisis worsening the rise and spread of infectious diseases, faster response can only be achieved with effective drugs.
Counterfeit pharma products also result in losses for manufacturers. The World Health Organization (WHO) says 42% of all fake medicines reported to them between 2013 and 2017 were from Africa. Substandard and falsified medicines cost Africa more than $30 billion every year, draining already limited health budgets and reducing treatment effectiveness.
Beyond the financial losses, counterfeit drugs contribute to over 116,000 preventable deaths annually from diseases such as malaria, as fake or poor-quality medicines undermine trust and delay proper care.
Counterfeit production and disposal create significant environmental and economic waste. According to the World Bank and Acviss, counterfeit goods account for up to 5% of global landfill waste and 2.5% of global CO₂ transport emissions.
Our take
The projects target the root causes of antimicrobial resistance, which is counterfeit antibiotics use, while helping health systems adapt to climate-related disease pressures
Stronger regulatory systems ensure that only safe, effective antimicrobials reach patients, reducing unnecessary exposure to substandard drugs.
This is increasingly important as climate change expands the range of infectious diseases and increases the frequency of outbreaks that trigger antibiotic use.