SAHPRA’s Response to Medical Brief article

12 November 2020

SAHPRA wishes to correct the inaccuracies in the Medical Brief article titled “High Court rules that SAHPRA not to regulate alternative medicines” published on 4 November 2020. On 01 October 2020, the Pretoria High Court delivered its judgment in the matter between the Alliance of Natural Health Products in South Africa (“ANHP”) v Minister of Health and SAHPRA.

Whilst the Hight Court ruled in favour of ANHP, it must be noted that the Minister of Health and SAHPRA have since filed an application for leave to appeal as it is their intention to appeal this judgment. Since the Minister and SAHPRA are appealing the judgement, this means that the judgement is stayed, pending the outcome of the appeal.

Therefore, the General Regulations under GG 41064 relating to the regulation of complementary medicines remain in force.

Thus, the statement in your article which states: “Health supplements and complementary medicines – not scheduled medicines as defined by the Medicine’s Act – will soon no longer be regulated by the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority, which regulates all medicines, including scheduled medicines.” Is therefore misleading and incorrect.

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