Afghanistan exports medicines to Somalia and Ghana

KABUL: The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) said Sunday that over 40 pharmaceutical factories have been put into operation in Afghanistan, producing more than 150 types of medicinal drugs to meet citizens’ needs.

The medicines are manufactured in Kabul, Herat, Nangarhar, and Kandahar provinces. After going through some standardization processes, the drugs are released to the markets.

“At least 42 pharmaceutical factories have been activated which produce 156 kinds of medicines,” said Daudshah Waliyar, an official at MoPH.

The medicines are also being exported by the Medicine Industry and Health Products Union of Afghanistan to some foreign countries such as Ghana and Somalia.

These medicines are produced in Afghanistan, and after going through some processes, the medicines will be exported, said Ahmad Sayed Shams, head of the union.

But the Afghan doctors are not fully certain about the quality of these medicines. Dr. Parwiz Iqbal said: “The doctors strive to recommend and prescribe the standardized medicines to their patients. If the medicines are up to standards and of good quality, every doctor will express keen interest in prescribing Afghan-made drugs to the patients,” he said.  

A pharmacist operating on the outskirts of Kabul city, Abdul Ghafor, said that people didn’t trust the domestically-produced medicines. “These medicines exist in ever drugstores but people don’t trust them and they don’t want to purchase them,” he said. 

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