UAE Launches National Drug Tracking System ‘Tatmeen’

The UAE has officially launched its national drug tracking system under the name of ‘Tatmeen’.

Tatmeen – which is Arabic for ‘assurance’ – is the region’s first platform for drug traceability. It was unveiled by the Ministry of Health and Prevention (MOHAP), the Department of Health-Abu Dhabi (DoH), and the Dubai Health Authority (DHA) during the Arab Health 2023 exhibition.

The process started in 2019 with mandatory tamper-evidence on all drug packaging. This was followed in 2022, in Dubai, by the mandating of GS1 barcode standards for all medicines in the supply chain, including a Global Location Number (GLN) for identifying trading partners, and a four-element 2D datamatrix code on secondary packaging.

The application of 2D matrix barcodes applies to both registered and non-registered drugs and is mandatory for all drugs imported or produced in the UAE. All sites that are licensed to dispense drugs must be registered with a GLN.

Tatmeen is a classic traceability system similar to those used in other countries, including, to some extent, India. That is to say, it involves the use of GS1 serialisation codes, the uploading of data to a central repository, the scanning of codes at every point in the supply chain, and the real-time recording of all pharmacy sales.

The security comes from the fact that pharmacies are not able to sell products with duplicated codes if the original has already been recorded as a sale. On the other hand, this implies that if the original has not yet been recorded, a duplicate would be able to slip by unnoticed.

According to officials, since its operational launch, the platform has tracked and traced 1.2 million drug packages across the UAE. Other than MOHAP, DoH and DHA, GS1 UAE and EVOTEQ are also involved in this project in public-private partnerships.