DG of Rwanda Standards Board officially opening the meeting

Rwanda Standards Board (RSB) in collaboration with Ministry of Health established the Medical and Pharmaceutical Testing Laboratory with the mission to protect public health by assuring the quality, efficacy, and safety of medicinal products and other health commodities in 2016. The principal function of the laboratory is to analyze medicines for public and private sector to ascertain the level of quality and efficacy of each medicine; imported or locally manufactured.

Considering that the incidence of counterfeiting pharmaceutical products and the proliferation of substandard quality medicines has been well identified internationally and constitutes a serious health hazard; RSB aims to strengthen the prevention and detection of substandard medicines through regular quality testing of imported and locally manufactured medicines. In this regard,  a one-day meeting to discuss and validate the current and future testing scope of pharmaceutical testing laboratories was organized on 13th September 2018, bringing together representatives from Government, private sector and importers and distributors of pharmaceutical and medical products.

In his remarks, Mr Raymond Murenzi Director General of Rwanda Standards Board noted that the laboratory was established to ensure quality control of medical and pharmaceutical products both imported and inland. He remarked that todate, the laboratory has the capacity to test more than 200 products and has the aim to continually increase the scope. He stressed that stakeholders’ contribution is paramount in deciding priority products to be added first as the laboratory is at the service of the people and through offering services to stakeholders. 

In addition to the presentations on detailed laboratory scope and discussion about future expansion, stakeholders made a tour of the laboratory premises to get explanations about how pharmaceutical products are tested.

Visiting the sample preparation room

Stakeholders visiting the lab

Samples tested