East African Community (EAC) envisages the creation of regional regulatory entity

As part of the European Medicines Agency's (EMA) ongoing collaboration with African regulators, a delegation of Heads of Agencies from the East African Community (EAC) visited EMA to gather information on the structure and operations of EMA. The meeting that took place on 18/19 May 2017 aimed at exploring whether EMA could serve as a model for the potential creation of a regional medicines agency for the EAC.

The report about the visit published by EMA and EAC states that, in addition to engaging in other international activities, the establishment of an EAC regional structure is important to sustain the ongoing joint regulatory harmonisation activities. The group also identified the main steps needed to establish such an agency.

The benchmarking study visit concluded that there is political will and a strong commitment of regulators from the EAC to improve public health by ensuring citizens have access to affordable, safe, efficacious and quality medicines.

The EAC is composed of six countries: Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. The delegation that visited EMA in May included the Heads of the national agencies, the EAC Secretariat, and representatives from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank Group.