Monrovia – Keturah Smith, the Managing Director of the Liberian Medical and Health Product Regulatory Authority (LMHRA) says if medicines that are imported are in the country are not of high quality, the health outcome of people living in Liberia will be very poor.
The LMHRA Managing Director made the remark when she was awarded by the Women Voices Newspaper as the best Managing Director of the year 2020.
It has been more than four years now since the Liberia medical Health Product Regulatory Authority was gutted by fire at the compound of the John F. Kennedy Medical Hospital.
Since then, the entity had been out of major equipment to properly regulate medicine and health products coming into the country.
But speaking at the event, the Managing Director of Liberian Medical Health Product Regulatory Authority says her team is about to receive a state of the art equipment to test all health products that will be coming in the country.
“We are pushing where we oust to be. This is not where the regulatory arm ousts to be, we are pushing where we oust to be and that is to be second to none in the south region,” she said.
“Four years ago, the regulatory had a challenge. The quality control lab gutted by fire. But within one year and with the team effort LMHRA can gladly say by February we will be able to do full completer testing of all health products, all medicines coming into the country”.
“Yesterday we received a memo that the chemical and equipment that we were expecting, the soft work that we were expecting to make the quality control lab to an extent functional, at least to carry on completer testing when the medicines arrive. That is good news for us not only the staffs of the LMHRA but the Liberian people because most of those medicines that we take, if they are not good, if they are of high quality, the health outcome of all of us will be very poor,” Madam Smith said.