Sharjah24: The Ministry of Health and Prevention (MoHAP) has signed a memorandum of understanding with the global organization specialising in healthcare supply chain standards.

The MoU aims to prevent entry of counterfeit health products, improve patient safety and compliance with regulations, and enhance the safety of medical and pharma products.
Traceability standards provide a unified and approved mechanism in the healthcare sector and supporting systems to ensure the transparency of data for each drug product.
Under this MoU, the ministry shall apply global traceability standards to drugs and medical products through the smart and innovative tracking platform 'Tatmeen', using GS1 barcodes.
This would help scan pharmaceutical products with a barcode reader in pharmacies and hospitals, thus identifying counterfeit medicines.


On the other hand, 'Tatmeen' platform provides the concerned parties in the supply chain with the ability to track the movement of medicines, while allowing community members to check the authenticity of drugs using mobile phone applications.

Ensuring safety and quality of medicines
"The UAE is one of the world's leading countries in combating drug counterfeiting. It has teamed up with international organisations to ensure the safety and quality of imported and exported medicines in accordance with the highest international standards," said his Excellency Abdullah Ahmed Ahli, Acting Assistant Undersecretary for the Support Services Sector.
He pointed to the importance of this agreement in enhancing the UAE’s leadership in this field, stressing that building quality and safety for therapeutic, healthcare and pharmaceutical systems according to international standards is one of the ministry's most important strategic goals.
Therefore, enhancing drug safety is an essential part of the Ministry's objectives, which seek to maintain patient safety and enhance community protection.
Speaking on the occasion Ali Al Ajmi, Director of Digital Health Department at the ministry  stressed that the signing of the agreement, which coincided with the launch of the first phase of the 'Tatmeen' platform, MoHAP's innovative initiative to track pharma and 


medical products from production to end-use, will contribute to aligning "Tatmeen" with the health regulations of international accreditation bodies.
According to the agreement, ‘Tatmeen’ shall adopt the global standard for drug tracking, which enhances the safety and reliability of the drug supply chain and contributes to improving interconnectivity and enhancing transparency in all drug products, their movement, and associated approvals and levels of supply for all approved government bodies.
The use of global drug tracking standards would also help pharma and distribution companies, as well as healthcare providers, to follow safety protocols and procedures to ensure drug and patient safety.
Reducing counterfeit drugs
For his part, Ramy Habbal, CEO of the organisation highlighted the significance of the agreement in strengthening the partnership with the Ministry of Health to achieve full traceability in healthcare.
He affirmed that the MoU would help enhance the levels of security, safety and reliability of the pharmaceutical supply chain and reduce counterfeit and substandard medicines.