Egypt’s Prime
Minister Mustafa Madbouli directed the government to solve the problem of
medicine shortage that the country is going through.
The Prime Minister’s
directives were given during a meeting with his deputy for human development
and Minister of Health Khaled Abdel Ghaffar and Chairman of the Egyptian
Medicines Authority Ali Al-Ghamrawy.
Mustafa Madbouli,
Prime Minister, held a meeting, to follow up on efforts to provide medicines
and deal with the problem of shortages, in the presence of Dr. Khaled Abdel
Ghaffar, Deputy Prime Minister for Human Development, Minister of Health and
Population, and Dr. Ali Al-Ghamrawy, Chairman of the Egyptian Medicines
Authority.
The Cabinet has
received a number of complaints in this regard, according to a statement
released by the cabinet on Sunday. “We must work to solve these problems and
coordinate with pharmaceutical companies to double production. We are ready to
support any steps in this file,” said Madbouli.
During the meeting,
the Minister of Health and Population explained that the crisis was caused by
the lack of dollar liquidity during the last period, saying this hard currency
shortage has affected the production of pharmaceutical manufacturing companies,
and then the availability of medicines in the markets.
Abdel Ghaffar
stressed that the crisis began to ease with the availability of dollar
liquidity, so the problem will end during the coming weeks.
For his part, the
head of the Drug Authority gave a detailed presentation that covered the
Authority’s efforts to provide medicines on the market, according to the
required priorities. He also discussed the authority’s the steps to work on
making a strategic stock of medicines and preparations available for various
uses.
He also touched on
the mechanisms for monitoring the stock of medicines, controlling the various
supply and distribution chains, and the efforts that have been done to push
production in the pharmaceutical sector to meet local needs.
Source: Egypt Today