Public Health Minister Says Gov’t Has Been Taking Appropriate Measures To Promote Local Pharmaceutical Companies, in Line With SND 2030.

At the 74^th session of the Regional Committee of the World Health Organization, WHO, that held in Brazzaville, Congo Republic throughout last week of August 2024), Cameroon’s Minister of Public Health, Dr Manaouda Malachie, who led the country’s delegation, presented a paper in which he said that the Biya Government has seriously been at work to promote the development of local pharmaceutical companies, in line with the National Development Strategy 2030, commonly known by the French acronym, SND 2023.  It should be noted that the Cameroon’s Minister of Public Health, is also currently the 3^rd Vice President of the World Health Organization.

According to a report on Minister Malachie’s presentation at the international event made public by the Chief of the Communication Unit at Cameroon’s Ministry of Public Health, Clavere Nken, the minister among other things said that the Cameroon Government has elaborated a programme aimed at promoting the development of pharmaceutical companies in conformity with SDN 2030. The minister also talked about a number of agreements that have been given out to a number of local pharmaceutical companies that currently cover 5 – 10 % of the demand in medicines and pharmaceutical products in the country. Minister Malachie said   the local pharmaceutical companies will gradually be increasing their market coverage, and that there is the hope that in the years ahead, the local pharmaceutical companies will be supplying as high as 40 % of the national needs in medicines and other pharmaceutical products.

The Minister of Public Health said as part of Government’s commitment to promoting the development of local pharmaceutical companies, Cameroon has as regard the judicial aspect,  ratified a treaty with the African Medicines Agency , with an engagement to set up  Cameroon Medicines Agency. He said this has led Cameroon to revise its judicial instrument in the matter of pharmaceutical regulations.

The minister talked of the presence of political will, strategic vision and institutional capacity in research and regulations. He said certain State institutions like IRMPM (‘Institut de Recheche Medicales  et  d’Etude des Plantes Medicinals’), that  is, the Institute of Medical Research and Medicinal Plants, and the  National Laboratory for  Quality Control of Medications, are rigorously followed up, and that they contribute to research and development of medicines in line with international standard.

Underfunded Health Sector

Meanwhile it would be recalled that in a joint investigative report in 2021 on the way Cameroon managed the COVID -19 pandemic, Transparency International and Human Rights Watch declared that: “Cameroon’s health sector is among the most underfunded in Africa”.  Yet the Government, instead of taking concrete measures to ameliorate the situation, keeps trying to paint a positive picture to deceive the international community, as if it is the international community that needs the good health sector in Cameroon, whereas it is for the good of the country.

The Cameroon Government keeps multiplying projects and slogans that it never at the end realizes.  As aforementioned, at the 74^th session of the Regional Committee of WHO that held in Brazzaville, Congo last week, Cameroon’s Minister of Public Health, Dr Manouada Malachie, talked of how the Cameroon Government is so commitment to promote the development of local pharmaceutical companies, or better still, to promote the production of quality drugs locally. He said this was being done in line the National Development Strategy, SND 2030. Government’s singsong for a number of years now has been the so called National Development Strategy or SND 2030, while on the ground nothing is happening. It is as if SND 2030 is a magical wand that will suddenly develop this underdeveloped country by 2030.

Just as in the 90s there was a singsong of the slogan, Health For All By The Year 2000.  It was as if the Government thought that the year 2000 would never come. When the year 2000 came, instead of Health For All, the health situation in the country had instead   degenerated. And then 21 years later, that is, the year 2021, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch in their investigative reports, declared that Cameroon’s health sector is one of most underfunded in Africa. A country, that the Government which has been in power for over 40 years had promised health for all by the year 2000!