International training

In October 2001, the TGA provided a comprehensive training program for two pharmacists from the Thai Food and Drug Administration on counterfeit drug detection and herbal medicine authenticity testing. This training was sponsored by the Australian Department of Health and Aged Care and the Thai Ministry of Public Health.

In the same month, under the Government Sector Linkage Program (GSLP) of AusAID, two senior pharmacists from the Indonesian National Agency for Drug and Food Control were trained on the evaluation of pharmaceutical chemistry data for prescription medicines.

In November, a group of senior scientists/pharmacists from the Institute of Drug Quality Control, Ministry of Health, Vietnam completed their four week WHO Fellowships on laboratory testing at the TGA.

On a cost-recovery basis, the TGA conducted several training sessions for China, Singapore and Taiwan on Chinese medicine regulation, complementary medicine evaluation and GMP auditing of pharmaceuticals.

International visitors

In the last quarter of 2001, international visitors to the TGA included the Malaysian Trade Commissioner to Australia, and delegations from the National Hospital Service of South Africa, the Shandong Drug Administration of China, the Bureau of National Health Insurance of Taiwan and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

In October a TGA senior staff member was invited as a key speaker by the State Drug Administration of China to give an address on complementary medicine regulation and Australian practice to an international forum on herbal medicines in Hangzhou.

GHTF Steering Committee activities

The GHTF Steering Committee held its third meeting in London on 11-12 October 2001. The major issues considered were:

• Reports from the first full meeting of the Global Medical Devices Nomenclature (GMDN) Maintenance Agency Policy Group;
• Further development of the GHTF Strategic Plan 2002-2006;
• Implementation of the Global Vigilance Exchange System;
• Approval of two Study Group 2 documents as "proposed" and "final" documents respectively;
• The proposed merger of GHTF Study Groups 3 and 4;
• The provision of GTHF training activities;
• The possible establishment of a permanent secretariat; and
• The timetable for future GHTF meetings, including the re-scheduling of the 9th GHTF Conference.

More detail about these issues may be obtained from the "post-meeting statement" and the Meeting's minutes on the GHTF website <http://www.ghtf.org>.