Monday, October 18, 2010

U.S. Embassy in Sri Lanka Funding Campaign to Combat Counterfeit Drugs


U.S. to host series of seminars to help various groups work together to protect Sri Lankan consumers from the dangers of counterfeit drugs.

According to the October 15th posting of The ColomboPage, Sri Lanka’s leading Internet newspaper, the United States Embassy in Colombo, Sri Lanka together with the Sri Lanka Chamber of Pharmaceutical Industry (SLCPI), the National Intellectual Property Office and the American Chamber of Commerce, will be hosting a series of seminars across the country to show how pharmacists, doctors, and government officials how they can work together to protect Sri Lankan families against the dangers of counterfeit drugs.

The announcement was made from a press release from the U.S. Embassy. According to the press release:

• The first of the seminar series will be held on October 17 in Colombo with the participation of Sri Lanka's Minister of Health Maithripala Sirisena and U.S. Ambassador Patricia A. Butenis.

• Approximately 200 pharmacists, pharmacy owners, students, police, customs, and government health officials are expected to participate in the inaugural training, the Embassy said.

• Three more workshops are planned in Galle, Kandy, and Jaffna during the coming months.

• The program includes four workshops under the theme "Protecting Sri Lankan Families from Counterfeit Drugs." Each workshop will include a discussion of ways to safeguard intellectual property rights by registering and controlling genuine pharmaceuticals and medicines and enforcing the procedures established to do so.

• The U.S. Department of State is the principal sponsor of the campaign. The U.S. Embassy in Colombo and the SLCPI are also providing funds for this important program.

• The U.S. Embassy, the Pharmaceutical Chamber, AmCham and the NIPO have jointly developed the series of workshops to examine the problem of counterfeit drugs which can irreparably harm patients and even cause death.

Clearly this is a significant first step in the United States working with countries pharmaceutical supply chain stakeholders in combating this deadly disease. Counterfeit drugs that are made in underdeveloped countries often end up imported into developed countries like the United States.

Recently it has been evident that the United States government is beginning a broad international campaign to work with countries against counterfeit goods and Intellectual Property crimes.

Secure Pharma Chain endorses these efforts but also encourages members of the pharmaceutical supply chain to deploy technologies and solutions to protect their inventories and their end user consumers from this deadly criminal act.

To read the entire article, visit: http://www.colombopage.com/

To learn more about anti-counterfeiting technologies, visit: http://www.xstreamsystems.net/

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