MEXICO & PANAMA

On April 2, Panama’s President, Laurentino Cortizo, met with the Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Qu Dongyu, where they agreed on joint actions, including the establishment of a hub for the distribution of medicines in the country. On the other hand, the head of Mexico’s Federal Commission for Protection against Health Risks (Cofepris in Spanish), Alejandro Svarch Perez, paid a working visit to India to strengthen regulatory cooperation with the country’s health authorities.

During the meeting between the Panamanian Executive and the FAO head, Dongyu pointed out that Panama “has a privileged geographical position and can become the new distribution center for food, technology and medicines for the world, especially for Asia”. The proposal is framed in a context of global supply crisis, which Cortizo described as the “perfect storm” for Panama, pledging to present the final document in October during FAO’s Week of Agriculture.

Meanwhile, the agenda of the visit of the head of Cofepris included the signing of a memorandum with its counterpart agency, the Central Drug Standards Control Organization (CDSCO), to promote coordination between the countries on drug regulation and sanitary registrations.  Both institutions will seek to jointly deploy actions in the areas of pharmacovigilance, surveillance of sanitary registrations and drug production.