MEDTIC: Digital innovation to ensure the proper use of medicines

This 2-year project, financed by the 5% Initiative with EUR 965,921, aims to promote digital innovation to ensure the proper use of essential medicines, such as antimalarial drugs, anti-tuberculosis drugs and antiretroviral drugs in Côte d’Ivoire.

It consequently aims to ensure market surveillance and fight against substandard and falsified medicines, by using technologies such as the QR Code and radio-frequency identification (RFID) to improve the traceability of health products. This pilot project will also use infrared technology to control the quality of inputs.

Furthermore, a digital application and online training sessions (MOOC) will be proposed to the project partners in order to build their skills at various levels of the drug distribution chain.

This project is being launched at a time when a Communication should shortly be made in the Council of Ministers, led by the Ministry of Health and Public Hygiene, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Justice, to mark Côte d’Ivoire’s commitment to the membership process for the MEDICRIME Convention, an international convention proposed by the Council of Europe to criminalise the trafficking of counterfeit drugs. Finally, guidelines were also formulated during the Presidential Committee on Health held on 9 August 2017, with a view to strengthening Côte d’Ivoire’s industrial capacity for pharmaceutical production, planned in the context of African integration.

The financing agreement for the MEDTIC project was signed by Antoine Peigney, Director of Expertise France’s Health Department, during his visit to Côte d’Ivoire, and by Professor Yapi, Chief Executive Officer of the New Pharmacy of Public Health .

The MEDTIC project is a project led by NPSP, in consortium with the Department of Pharmacy, Medicines and Laboratories (DPML), the National Laboratory of Public Health (LNSP) and the National Programme for the Development of Pharmaceutical Activity (PNDAP) of Côte d’Ivoire.