[Blog] Traceability in Kuwait – the journey towards a better and safer Healthcare
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The end of 2022 brought another regulatory deadline – Kuwait announced mandatory serialization until 2024.
Market overview
Kuwait’s Pharmaceuticals market is in the growing stage thanks to the government`s healthcare initiatives. Due to large investments through public-private partnerships for the development of the healthcare sector, the pharma market in this region is expected to increase significantly its volume in the upcoming years. In the Kuwait Vision 2035, both Pharma and Healthcare industries are indicated with high priority. Many projects and initiatives are projected to be carried out in the direction of effective control of the drug and food sectors.
Traceability goal
The last step towards a better and safer healthcare system was made at the end of the previous year. In December Ministry of Health in Kuwait published Circular (1) – 2022 regarding the track and trace requirements. The document notes the main objectives for implementing traceability requirements:
- Combat drug counterfeiting and fraud
- Establish effective and qualitative traceability mechanism
- Obtain information and statistics in an accessible and transparent manner
- Encourage GS1 Standards use
The Ministry of Health signed MoU with GS1 Kuwait – Commitment to implement GS1 Standards in the healthcare sector.
Serialization Requirements
It is issued that the barcode system will be adopted, applying to all locally manufactured and imported medicines that circulate on the Kuwait market.
Barcode specifications include GTIN, Expiry date, Batch number, and Serial number. The following data must be encoded in a two-dimensional barcode and positioned on the outer packaging of the pharmaceutical product.
Timeline
The issued document includes a timeline of requirements implementation. All local agents are requested to start the information uploading through GS1 Kuwait from January 2023. The deadline is set for the end of 2023.
The main goal behind all these actions is to establish the global language in traceability for the medicines to the state of Kuwait. Through standards unification, Kuwait follows the steps towards better healthcare that many developed countries already enforced, increasing patient safety, drug supply chain efficiencies, and traceability.
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