The Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean organized a technical training session on good manufacturing practices (GMP) in Salalah, Oman from 2 to 6 December 2012. The training was attended by GMP inspectors of national medicines regulatory authorities and Ministries of Health from 11 countries in the Region including Afghanistan, Egypt, Islamic Republic of Iran, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

The objectives of the training were to:

• introduce the WHO prequalification of medicines programme standards
• train inspectors in the Region on common GMP deficiencies identified during the prequalification programme inspections
• train inspectors from selected countries on the implementation of international GMP requirements related to heating, ventilation and air conditioning, water treatment systems as well as cleaning and process validation in a practical hands on setting
• provide a list of GMP deficiencies for consideration by candidate manufacturers as an outcome of the group’s collective effort and observations during the training
• introduce the WHO prequalification of medicines programme’s collaborative procedures on joint inspection missions and fast track registration of prequalified medicines.