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Dar es Salaam, Tanzania | Xinhua | Experts from the member states of the East African Community (EAC) on Wednesday began a two-day meeting aimed at identifying investment incentives for antibiotics production in the region.
Jean Baptiste Havugimana, the EAC director of Productive Sectors, told the meeting in Tanzania’s northern city of Arusha that the pharmaceutical sector was one of the priority areas for the EAC’s industrialization policy.
Havugimana said the region aspired to develop the pharmaceutical industry as part of the region’s social and political integration agenda.
“As a region we recognize the strategic importance of developing local production of pharmaceutical products in promoting access to affordable, high quality and essential medicines,” he added.
Havugimana observed that there was still a high dependency on imported pharmaceutical products, including antibiotics, across the region, with the EAC member states importing between 70 and 90 percent of the medicines that the region’s population consumes.
“There is need for the member states to develop a harmonized regional list of essential medicines and medical devices that can be manufactured and procured from the region to promote the local pharmaceutical sector,” said Havugimana.
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Xinhua
