Track & Trace in healthcare logistics is the practice of monitoring and tracing the movement of pharmaceutical products throughout the supply chain. This system ensures real-time/ near real-time visibility, enabling efficient regulatory compliance, and rapid response to recalls. Serialization, a pivotal process in healthcare logistics, involves tagging each product with a unique 12-digit serial number. This unique identifier is printed on the product's packaging, forming the basis for precise tracking and tracing throughout the supply chain.
NAFDAC and GS1 Nigeria are playing a pivotal role to encourage local manufacturers implement Track & Trace program with guidelines/regulations. Their objective is to facilitate the harmonization of critical tracking events and key data elements across the different supply chain entities thus enabling a more transparent healthcare supply chain. The heightened transparency not only aligns with regulatory requirements but also cultivates increased patient trust in the healthcare system.
In addition to enhancing supply chain visibility and ensuring product authenticity, the Track & Trace solution also reduces the risk of errors, improves inventory management, and helps in compliance with regulatory requirements while enabling quicker responses to issues such as recalls.
Numerous African nations, such as Ghana, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, and Botswana, are actively working on drafting their traceability strategies and implementing regulatory guidelines to streamline and harmonize their healthcare supply chains.
The global standards followed by this regulation will harmonize data exchange across the different supply chain actors, thus increasing supply chain visibility. This, in turn, reduces the susceptibility of the Nigerian pharma supply chain ecosystem to counterfeit drugs.
In the event of a recall or product withdrawal, the Track & Trace solution allows for rapid identification and isolation of affected items. This helps to minimize the impact on consumers and ensures regulatory compliance.
Track & Trace and serialization are extremely crucial for post-marketing surveillance and pharmacovigilance activities. They help in efficient and precise recall management of affected batches, thus making the Nigerian healthcare landscape nimble in responding to and reporting adverse events and product quality issues, mitigating patient risks in the process.
The solution has been implemented with robust security measures, including encryption, authentication, and access controls, to ensure the security and integrity of the tracked data. To reinforce this, periodic audits and compliance checks will be conducted to maintain data quality.
MeCure, a leading Nigerian pharmaceutical manufacturer, demonstrated its ongoing commitment to NAFDAC, by compliance towards patient safety and enhancing industry standards in the Nigerian pharmaceutical landscape by releasing Track & Trace enabled brands into the market that can be authenticated by a smartphone.
You can access the Track & Trace information by scanning the unique code provided on the product packaging using the designated mobile application by following the prompted steps on your phone.
All you need is a smartphone.
The Track & Trace solution provides information on the pack origination and the quality report of the batch. It also encourages you to share any feedback on the product and adverse effects, if any, directly to the manufacturer.
Yes, you can! We advise the use of the Track & Trace solution to verify the authenticity of product before purchase.
Registration is not mandatory for basic access.
