THIS week's contributor is Toni Riley, Community Pharmacist and Project Manager of National Return of Unwanted Medicines - Although sending unwanted medicines to developing countries or countries experiencing disaster situations is often thought to be a useful way of providing much needed supplies, unfortunately not all medicine donations are helpful, and inappropriate medicine donations can be dangerous or useless. In these situations, medicine donations become a source of further problems to the country involved.
In Guatemala in 1976, 7,000 cartons of mixed medicines were donated. It took almost 6 months to sort these drugs and only 10% of the medicines sent were actually relevant to the health needs in Guatemala and adequately labelled. This is one of many examples which lead to the World Health Organisation developing guideline to assist other countries in developing their own policies.
Australian Guidelines have been developed to guide any donations overseas to ensure the appropriate, good quality and essential medicines can be made available in times of need. If medicines are to be donated, the country seeking the donation must officially request specific medicines before they can be sent.
If the quality of a medicine is not suitable for use in Australia, it is not suitable for donation to an overseas country. For more information about Return Unwanted Medicines visit www.returnmed.com.au.
The above article was sent to subscribers in Pharmacy Daily's issue from 31 Jul 17
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