African Union discusses drug supply and regs

A gathering of the African Union's Health Ministers in Johannesburg, South Africa, has discussed a range of measures designed to reduce the continent's dependence on imported drugs, boost local production, as well as the pooling of regional resources to speed up the approval process for new products.

The third meeting of the 53 African states' Health Ministers is designed to produce a series of agreements for ratification by an AU summit of heads of state. On the agenda are: the harmonization across the whole of Africa of a series of regional agreements on health strategy; a plan to reduce the rate of HIV in under 25 year olds; traditional medicines; and the critical physician and nursing shortage.

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