- Food and Drugs Act (PNDCL 305B) and its amendment Act 523 1996 regulates the preparation, sale, importation and exportation of Food, Drugs, Cosmetics, Household Chemicals & Medical devices. This is to ensure that these products are safe, efficacious and of good quality. According to WHO, 2002, Pharmacovigilance is the science and activities relating to the detection, assessment, understanding and prevention of adverse effects or any other drug-related problems in human. Pharmacovigilance checks Adverse Drug Reaction (ADR),which is a response to a drug which is noxious and unintended, and which occurs at doses normally used in man for the prophylaxis, diagnosis, or therapy of disease,…

- According to the WHO, many countries will spend 30-40% of their health care budgets on medicines and much of that money is wasted on irrational drug use and inefficiencies in procurement of medicines. Other serious problems that healthcare organizations face are the overuse of antibiotics, increasing antimicrobial resistance, increasing adverse drug reactions and considerably higher costs associated with medicine use. Around 50% of all medicines are prescribed, dispensed or sold inappropriately while 50% of patients fail to take their medicines appropriately (WHO 2002a) Inefficient and irrational use of medicines is a widespread problem at all levels of health care (Hogerzeil 1995) Med…

- They have mouths, but they speak not... They have ears, but they hear not. (Psalms 115:5-6, King James Bible) This quotation is in no way referring to whoever cannot hear physically, but come to think of it, do we have people around us, whom this scripture perfectly describes outside the spiritual? Ray Charles (1930-2004), a famous American pianist and singer, who lost his sight at the age of seven, once said: “I don't know what would have happened to me if I hadn't been able to hear.” Do the inhabitants of this great country believe in the existence of the physically challenged in our societies? We mock them, exploit them, ignore them in decision-making and th…

- There are ten regions in my dear motherland, Ghana. A country that has so much respect for culture and democracy. The Microsoft Encarta (2009) has this to say of my dear country: “The people of this densely populated country belong to more than 100 different ethnic groups, but Ghana has largely been spared the ethnic conflict that has torn apart many other African countries.” I am proud to be Ghanaian. The first state in sub-Saharan Africa to gain political independence from European colonial rule is just about subjecting some part of the country to another form of colonialism. The media in Ghana, especially have created a phraseology that goes ‘...the three Northern r…