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The Ministry of Health (MoH) in collaboration with the Sanofi Aventis Groupe, a leading pharmaceutical company in Africa, has begun a three day workshop for medical store managers in the West African sub-region. The event is envisaged to help participants from Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone to improve public health in sub-Saharan African countries by enhancing access to medicines through an effective medicine supply chain system. Topics like identifying and quantifying needs, medicine procurement, medicine quality assurance, training warehouse supervisors in managing pharmaceutical product and stock management would be addressed. Samuel Boateng, Director of Procurement and Supply, Ministry of Health (MoH), said in his welcome address that improving the management of health product is an opportunity to improve health services. �A positive impact on health depends on whether a health product is available and is used appropriately; when it is not, much of the entire health sector�s investment is wasted,� he stated. Mr Boateng indicated that knowledge and experience concerning effective health products and medicine management are spreading rapidly worldwide, but remained disparate, unsynthesized, and frequently unavailable to decision-makers. �Often when a programme is being designed, an essential component is overlooked � the supply system.� He said as a result of the neglected supply system, most of the medicines and the health products do not reach their target population on time and in the right quantity and quality. �The worst tragedies in public health are the avoidable ones [�] We see evidence of these tragedies everyday; children dying of preventable diseases, adults suffering from major but treatable diseases and women bearing unwanted babies,� he explained. He noted that a reliable, responsive logistics system makes the difference between a client consistently receiving the product he/she needs and a client walking away empty-handed, adding that the MoH had developed a five-year plan for the medicine supply system to address the situation. �When implemented, this plan will transform the health supply system to one that would guarantee access to quality and affordable health commodities,� he said. Francois Desbrandes, Deputy Director of Sales and Operations, Access to Medicine, Sanofi Aventis Groupe, said participants would be taken through the eight module of the medicine supply chain during the workshop. He said access to medicine is a challenge in developing countries; hence the workshop to ensure that remote populations have access to the best quality drugs to treat diseases. He said an effective medicine supply chain should have medicines that are affordable, accessible and adaptable, and that awareness should be created. �Medicine supply chain is like a puzzle; if one is not working properly, all the chain will be affected so we have to bring all others at the same level. It is what we are doing here,� he noted.