20 Nov 2025

The Botswana Medicines Regulatory Authority (BoMRA) in partnership with the Tirelo Sechaba national service programme has trained over 740 participants nationwide as ambassadors for medicine safety and regulatory awareness, with the latest one-day workshop held in Kanye on Tuesday. 

The workshop held in Kanye, forms part of an ongoing countrywide sensitisation campaign conducted in partnership with the Ministry of Youth and Gender Affairs (MYGA), which oversees the Tirelo Sechaba national service programme. 

Speaking on the sidelines of the event, BoMRA Public Relations Officer Ms Itumeleng Modibedi-Ledimo said the collaboration with the ministry had extended the authority’s ability to promote access to safe, effective and quality health products. 

“While the workshops target all Tirelo Sechaba participants, we place particular emphasis on those deployed to hospitals, clinics and health posts, where they interact daily with patients and healthcare workers,” she explained. 

Participants were briefed on BoMRA’s core mandate, which includes regulating the supply chain of medicines and related health products, pharmacovigilance, licensing, inspections, and public education on counterfeit medicines. 

They also received practical guidance on the safe use of medicines, how to recognise and report adverse drug reactions, and the importance of regulatory compliance. 

Ms Modibedi-Ledimo said the trained youth were now well equipped to relay this information in their workplaces and communities, thereby strengthening medicine-safety reporting at grassroots level. 

She added that similar workshops have already taken place in several districts, with the current Southern District phase set to conclude in Goodhope, Moshupa and Thamaga before the campaign moves to other regions. 

The PRO described the sessions as highly interactive, noting that participants offered valuable suggestions on the most effective ways to spread medicine-safety messages.

She emphasised that the partnership with the ministry was a key element of BoMRA’s broader stakeholder-engagement strategy to ensure ethical practices throughout the pharmaceutical sector. 

In a related development, Ms Modibedi-Ledimo revealed that BoMRA was collaborating with traditional health practitioners to codify and standardise their medicines, which could eventually allow safe, approved traditional products to be sold in registered pharmacies. 

“This initiative has the potential to create employment, stimulate the local economy and integrate safe traditional medicines into the formal healthcare system,” she said. 

Ms Modibedi-Ledimo urged all health-sector stakeholders to actively support such partnerships in the interest of public health.  The series of interactive awareness workshops, which began on October 14, 2025, was scheduled to conclude on November 27. ENDS