DUSHANBE, February 27, Asia-Plus — A three-day meeting of experts from the CIS countries will open in Minsk on February 28.
The experts are gathering in the Belarus capital to coordinate a draft agreement on combating trafficking in forged medicines.
Participants at the meeting staged on initiative of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine include representatives from Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Ukraine.
The draft agreement has been worked out on initiative of the Russian Federation and Ukraine and the CIS Interstate Commission for Standardization, Registration and Control of Medicines considered it in October 2001, and in January 2002 the CIS Council for Health Cooperation took a decision to submit for consideration to the Council of Heads of Governments of CIS States. The draft document that was revised at the first session of experts has been submitted for coordination to the governments of the CIS states.
Some states (Belarus, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan) have presented a number of remarks and proposals that has caused the holding of repeated session of experts.
As it had been reported earlier, the CIS states, lately, express concern about forgery of medicines. According to experts’ estimates, a share of forged medicines on the CIS pharmaceutical market accounts for 10%-30% percent (US$300million-US$400 million).
