An ambitious new 3-year project, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, aims to improve regulation to enhance access to quality veterinary products for millions of livestock farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a news release from the Global Alliance for Livestock Veterinary Medicines (GALVmed).

Africa has an estimated 800 million livestock keepers. The livestock sector contributes between 30 to 50% of agricultural GDP and supports the food security and livelihoods of about one-third of Africa’s population, or about 350 million people.

The high prevalence of livestock diseases is a major constraint to increasing farmers’ incomes and enhancing agricultural development, food security and resilience. Availability and accessibility of high-quality veterinary medicines are considered key to combating animal diseases and helping to curb economic losses.

Registering veterinary medicines in Africa through the currently established processes is cumbersome and time consuming. Improving the registration system for veterinary medicines across nations and harmonising the requirements will simplify the process, save time, and resources and help to ensure the quality, safety, and efficacy of veterinary products.

Currently, there is no overarching framework or governance structure for cooperation between agencies responsible for veterinary medicines in Africa. The project seeks to support the development of a long-term governance structure to improve access to high quality veterinary medicines through better regulation in a coordinated manner.

‘Better Regulation’ is a multi-partner project implemented by Global Alliance for Livestock Veterinary Medicines (GALVmed), the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), the UK Veterinary Medicines Directorate (UK-VMD) and the East African Community (EAC), with the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The project aims to significantly improve the predictability, efficiency and transparency of regulatory processes required to bring new veterinary products to market thereby increasing product availability and contributing to improved animal health and livestock production.

“Effective regulation of veterinary medicines provides assurance to farmers and service providers on the quality of products available on the national market and encourages them to invest in these essential products. It allows manufacturers to bring their products to market in a predictable and timely manner. GALVmed is committed to supporting greater convergence in veterinary regulation in Africa to improve availability and access to quality veterinary products,” said Dr Lois Muraguri, GALVmed’s Senior Director for Enabling Environment & Partner Engagement.

The project will further develop a Self-Assessment Tool that will support regulatory agencies to assess and strengthen their regulatory capacity. The tool will enable agencies prioritise their capacity building efforts and enable measurement of progress over time thereby improving their ability to regulate veterinary products.

“We are really excited to be working alongside our partners and with regulatory networks throughout sub-Saharan Africa to put in place our common goal of increasing availability of veterinary medicines for farmers. Good quality medicines and vaccines underpin healthy, happy livestock which means more income for farmers, better protection of public health and safer food on the table,” said Suzanne Eckford, Head of International Office at the UK-Veterinary Medicines Directorate.
The project will also build on the success of the East African Community (EAC) Mutual Recognition Procedure (MRP), a novel approach to veterinary product registration that allows for simultaneous application of marketing authorisations in multiple countries in EAC. The project seeks to improve MRP efficiency and sustainability leading to reduced timelines for registration and more veterinary products being submitted and approved through the EAC MRP.

“This project is going to strengthen the capacity of national regulatory agencies and make it easier to work on the harmonised mechanisms to support registration of veterinary products at regional level, thereby improving quality, increasing availability and lowering the cost of these products," said Fahari Marwa, Principal Agricultural Economist at the EAC.

Improved regulation of veterinary products benefits everyone. Farmers will benefit from increased availability of safe, effective, quality veterinary products. National medicine regulatory authorities will be better equipped to regulate medicines in a timely manner by improving regulatory processes. Lastly, manufacturers and their local representatives will benefit from simplified, transparent, predictable and standardised regulatory approval processes. Overall, these efforts to advance and improve regulatory systems will improve animal health and livestock production.