Seventy of the 82 hospital pharmacies in Ho Chi Minh City have been awarded the World Health Organization (WHO)’s Good Pharmacy Practices (GPP) certificates for the past year, the city’s health department has reported.

According to a Ministry of Health’s instruction which took effect on January 1, 2008, every drugstore nationwide must meet GPP standards within three years or lose its business license.

To date, 140 of the city’s 3,816 pharmacies have obtained GPP accreditation, including 36 run by pharmaceutical trading firms and 34 by private individuals, Lan said.

Some 300 people attended the meeting, which was sponsored by pharmaceuticals supplier DKSH Vietnam Ltd.

The GPP standards specify storage and distribution procedures for medicinal products, require that a professionally trained pharmacist be on duty at all times, that drugstores have a minimum area of 10 square meters, and sell drugs of clear origin, good quality and reasonable prices.

GPP comprises baseline standards issued by the International Pharmaceutical Federation in 1993.

It was revised in 1997 and has been endorsed by the WHO.

Reported by Van Khoa