KUALA LUMPUR, July 26 — The Ministry of Health will distribute three more types of medicines in its buffer stock to the private medical facilities to overcome the shortage of certain medicines in the market.
Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said the ministry had distributed Paracetamol and would distribute Promethazine for the treatment of flu and Salbutamol and Theophylline to treat asthma.
“We are receiving orders from private clinics and hospitals for these three types of medicine, and we will give the medicines at cost of the price we bought,” he said during the Minister’s Question Time at the Dewan Rakyat today.
Khairy was responding to a question by Kota Belud MP Isnaraissah Munirah Majlis on the ministry’s plans to introduce the Malaysian National Medicines Policy (MNMP) and to what extent are the government’s measures in creating a buffer stock of medicines control supply instability.
He said as of July 22, the Ministry of Health had released its buffer stocks of paracetamol to 220 hospitals and private clinics.
Khairy added the sale of paracetamol increased by up to 238 per cent for the first quarter of this year, compared with the corresponding in the previous year, due to a sudden increase in demand for medicines for the treatment of diseases such as fever, flu and cough.
“This high demand has caused a shortage of supply for some types of medicines even though the production of those medicines has been increased by local manufacturers, in addition to increasing the number of medicines imported from abroad,” he added.
Khairy said he expected the situation to recover by the fourth quarter of this year and that one of the reasons for the shortage of medicines in the market was due to supply disruption following a ‘total lockdown’ policy by China, where many active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) are produced.
He said the crisis in Russia and Ukraine also contributed to the problem.
For long-term measures, Khairy said the ministry, among other things, was refining the framework to establish strategic cooperation with the world’s main API-producing countries to guarantee the supply of API for national use, including during a crisis.
“The Health Ministry’s advocacy role in relation to pharmaceutical product patents will be strengthened through collaboration with the Malaysian Intellectual Property Corporation (MyIPO) to avoid patent evergreening.
“This will ensure earlier access to affordable generic medicines and protect the rights of patent holders,” Khairy said.
— Bernama
