On Tuesday the Office of the Director of Health Services issued a press release informing importers of pharmaceuticals about new customs regulations and guidelines being put into place. From now on all customs entries for pharmaceutical products are required to be processed by the Ministry of Health. Figueroa told us about the transition, and how it will help the Ministry keep track of pharmaceutical drugs coming into the country...
Dr. Ramon Figueroa, CEO - Ministry of Health
"There is 2 things; one is the issue of custom and customs entries and the other is the establishment of a registry for Belize. What we want to do is we want to regularize the whole importation and distribution of pharmaceuticals and medical equipment, because for too long we've had importations of medication and this is particularly I must say for the private sector where we get a lot of pharmacies having products that come from dubious pharmaceutical companies from dubious countries. you know that this is an international money making industry and so in our role as protecting the public we have to ensure that we put proper standards and guidelines and that's the basic purpose, that we want to have all medications be registered in Belize after going through a proper scrutiny, ensuring that they have the proper documentation in terms of manufacturing practices and in terms of quality of the products. So that's the whole idea and in terms of customs we need to have a better control, because we are trying to enforce the importation of good quality medication we also need to ensure that the medications that are coming in go through the proper channels, so we are centralizing the customs application process."
The new policy will allow the Ministry to ensure that Belizeans are consuming quality pharmaceutical products.
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