The WAQSP held in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, from 28 to 29 July 2016, a regional workshop on strengthening skills for the benefit of executives of the sixteen national inspection bodies responsible of drug control.

This workshop was part of the support to the establishment of quality systems in about forty bodies involved in priority areas of the industry department, and the support to the ECOWAS Commission’s private sector such as: pharmaceutical products, food products, building & construction and motor mechanics.

Participants from the fifteen ECOWAS countries and Mauritania have been strengthened to the requirements of standards ISO 17020 (Conformity assessment, operation of various types of bodies performing inspection) and ISO 9001 (Quality management system).

Stressing on the importance of the workshop for the ECOWAS Commission, Mr. Kalilou TRAORE, Commissioner for Industry and promotion of Private Sector, recalled in his speech that : «in Africa, falsified medicines rates vary between 30 and 70% depending on the country, that counterfeit medicines against malaria and tuberculosis would be alone responsible for over 700,000 deaths per year». Before adding that ‘’with proper medication, it would save 200,000 lives».

Therefore, concluded Mr. Christian SOMDA, Cabinet Director of the Minister of Trade, Industry and Handicrafts of Burkina Faso, people must work to «establish an effective and efficient inspection system that can help to detect defective drugs which represent a threat to human health». The general objective of the workshop was well to sensitize to the quality management those key resources persons involved in the inspection process in the pharmaceutical sector.

Specifically, the issues are twofold for the West African region:

-Improving the internal functioning of inspection bodies and harmonize practices;

-Ensuring the quality inspections and therefore guaranteeing the marketing of blameless quality of pharmaceuticals products.

On the horizon, it is expected that the most advanced inspection bodies in the deployment of a Quality Management System are selected to receive additional assistance through the Quality Program, with a view to a certification to ISO / IEC 9001 or an accreditation to ISO / IEC 17020.