MeTA stands for the medicines transparency alliance which is a multi-stakeholder alliance working to improve access and affordability of medicines to all those who are unable to access basic and essential medicines due to high cost or local unavailability.
The availability of good quality, affordable medicines is affected by several factors. The appropriate medicines have to be selected from the thousands available; then they have to be procured after involving the relevant regulatory authorities and agencies in their registration, importation or local manufacture.
When they arrive in the country or at the factory gates, these medicines have to be distributed to public and private facilities including hospitals, clinics, pharmacies and licensed chemical sellers’ shops nationwide. They then have to be priced and supplied by licensed professionals in licensed premises. Clearly, this whole process is an extremely complex process and a weakness in any one of the various areas mentioned could have a huge impact on the price and/or availability of the medicine to the consumer.
- How then do we ensure that all the players in the medicines field are playing according to the rules and working had to ensure that the patient gets the best possible deal?
- How do we ensure that the poor old lady in the village obtains all the essential medicines she needs at prices which are fair?
- How do we ensure that the quality of these medicines is good and that her hard-earned money is used most cost-effectively?
In the main, this relies on the availability of credible information to all players so that we each watch over each other.
MeTA therefore brings together several stakeholders to collect, analyse, disclose and apply data influencing medicine procurement, promotion and supply. The main partners in MeTA are the Public Sector, the Private Sector and Civil Society including patients’ representatives, communities, NGOs, faith-based organisations and the media.
The importance of good quality medicines to the attainment of excellent health is not in doubt. In creating wealth through health in our beloved Ghana, it is clearly important that we ensure that all medicines in the country are of the best possible quality, are easily available from registered premises, are prescribed and dispensed properly and are used rationally.This calls for an alliance of all those who use medicines and those whose lives are affected in any way by medicines. This alliance should be willing to disclose and share information and to use that information to improve the availability, affordability and use of medicines. This is what MeTA stands for and this is the cause to which we are kindly, gently and passionately enlisting your support and involvement





