RIYADH, 4 December 2005 — The Workshop on Drug Policy and Regulation which concluded Thursday in Riyadh called for a National Drug and Poison Information Center in the Kingdom. The weeklong symposium was sponsored by the Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA) in cooperation with the World Bank and World Health Organization (WHO).

Delegates attending the workshop felt that such a center would develop and implement centralized services to assist health professionals in providing optimal levels of drug therapy and poison management in the Kingdom and provide poison information request services to the public. Such a center would include a staff of pharmacists, pharmacologists and nurses to answer questions about poisonings, drug abuse, product contents, substance identification interactions and adverse reactions to drugs.

The workshop also emphasized the need for an adverse drug reaction monitoring system as well as a review of drug pricing policies in the Kingdom.

“The workshop was a starting point for a comprehensive effort by the Saudi government to protect Saudis from harmful and ineffective medicines and other health products and to ensure the quality and affordability of these items,” SFDA President Dr. Mohammed Ahmed Al-Kanhal said. It defined the parties that must be involved in all these areas, and a process was agreed to initiate broad consultation with them, he added.

Al-Kanhal stressed that his team would spare no effort to draw an appropriate and consensus-based document which would take into account the interests of all stakeholders including the ultimate beneficiary of this exercise — the public.

The workshop was led by Professors Graham Dukes and Ane Haaland (Norway) as consultants to the World Bank and two officials from the WHO, Professor Richard D. Laing from WHO headquarters in Geneva and Dr. Zafar Mirza from East Mediterranean Region. The workshop was attended by representatives of SFDA, the ministries of health, the interior and defense and aviation, academic institutions, King Faisal Specialist Hospital, pharmacists and health care professionals.

SFDA Vice President Dr. Ibrahim Alshowaier said that the delegates had drawn up a list of objectives that would ensure safe and effective medicines of good quality that were accessible and affordable to the entire population. The workshop also stressed the need for effective communication with patients and the general public.