Planning, Drug Info. Establishment & Distribution Department
Drug Information  ADR & Promotion Control  Planning & Programming

Promotion Control

Information and promotion of drugs may greatly influence their supply and use. Provision of adequate and correct drug information to consumers and prescribers are essential for rational and safe use of pharmaceutical products.

Drug promotion is one of the activities carried out by pharmaceutical companies to compute for a bigger sale of their products through disseminating information to prescribers, consumers and other health professionals. Hence, it is observed that drugs are being promoted as ordinary commodities with exaggerated advantages and hardly disclosing their disadvantages. Furthermore, the ever-increasing brand oriented promotion is being observed to have misled physicians not to select the right drug for their patients. On the other hand, the frequent prescription and supply of costy branded drugs arising from promotion of such types is creating a non-conducive environment in which the majority of the people can't afford to pay for the drugs they are prescribed with. Therefore problems associated with provision of inaccurate and biased information brings about medically unjustifiable drug use.

Strong regulation of promotional activities and the provision of accurate information to prescribers and consumers are among the indispensable steps that the government should take to improve the rational use of drugs. 

The 41st World Health assembly endorsed the ethical criteria for medical drug promotion which constitute general principles that could be adapted to the situation in member states and urges them to take their own appropriate measures to ensure that medical drug promotion support the aim of improving health care through rational use of drugs.

Being one of the member states, the government of Ethiopia accepted the resolution WHA41.17 by the World Health assembly on the ethical criteria for medical drug promotion and delegated the Drug Administration and Control Authority to control dissemination of drug information and promotion, which is stated under article 22 of the Drug Administration and Control proclamation No 176/99.

Therefore, cognizant of the ill effect that unethical drug promotion may result in, the Drug Administration and Control Authority of Ethiopia has adapted it to the country's situation and developed a guideline aimed at controlling the promotion of drugs.