Hope as govt moves to reduce prices of drugs

Dar es Salaam. Prices of essential medicines in public health facilities are set to decline by up to 80 per cent as a result of a new procurement system adopted this financial year.

The Medical Stores Department (MSD) has from this month dropped the use of agents, and is instead purchasing drugs in bulk directly from manufacturers.

The minister for Health, Community Development, Gender, Children and the Elderly, Ms Ummy Mwalimu, told reporters yesterday at a press conference that procuring medicine directly from manufacturers would not only reduce prices, but was also going to increase the availability of medicines in public hospitals and health centres by up to 90 per cent.

Experts say, however, that the new system will not necessarily resolve the question of inadequate accessibility of medical supplies in public hospitals, which is caused by a myriad of factors.

Unrealistic orders from local government authorities is one of the reasons for the shortages, according to MSD director general Mr Lurean Bwanakunu.

Mr Bwanakunu told reporters yesterday that district councils have been under-estimating their actual needs and thus placing orders that do not meet their needs by nine months, which is the required shelf life of drugs in public medicines.

“We have realised that many district councils have been pressing orders that are below their actual demand leading to shortages of essential drugs in public hospitals,” he said, adding that if that problem is resolved MSD medical supplies would meet 100 per cent of the demand in public hospitals.

But Mr Bwanakunu also said MSD cannot purchase medicine that is over and above the demand to avoid drugs expiration issues.

But both stakeholders in the health sector and Members of Parliament have also been pointing to inadequate MSD budget as another reason for the shortage.

According to health advocacy organisations the actual annual budget needed to meet demand of medicines in public hospitals in the country is Sh577 billion.

But despite annual increase in the MSD budget it has always remained far below the Sh500 billion mark.

Ms Mwalimu said yesterday that MSD budget increased from Sh41 billion in the fiscal year 2015/16 to Sh251 billion in 2016/17. This financial year, 2017/18, the budget has increased to Sh269 billion.

But according to activists this would only meet demand by 47 per cent. And the budgetary situation has been worsened by the fact that the budget of MSD has not always been disbursed in full.

In the 2016/17 fiscal year, Ms Mwalimu said yesterday, the Treasury disbursed only about Sh132 billion out of Sh251 billion that was allocated.

Ms Mwalimu added that the new system of procuring drugs and other medical supplies directly from manufacturers will cut out middlemen and fix loopholes that escalated cots and delayed supplies in the public health system. It will also see prices of some drugs fall by between 15 to 80 per cent.

“MSD will not use supply agents anymore because this escalated the cost of drugs supplies and also delayed delivery of medical supplies when needed,” said Ms Mwalimu. She added that the adoption of the new procurement method also follows President John Magufuli’s directive to cut bureaucracy and corruption that made the availability of drugs in public hospitals beyond the reach of the most poor.

“The aim is to save cost and time hence reducing the burden to Wananchi. For example the hepatitis B vaccine which was available at the price of Sh22,000 will now be sold at Sh5,300 and 625mg of Amoxicillin/Clavulanic Acid Potassium has dropped from Sh9,800 to 4,000,” she explained.

From the new system MSD will procure 178 categories of drugs and 195 medical supplies from 73 manufactures, 10 among them being local manufacturers. The manufacturers have been given a two-year contracts. Apart from Tanzania, other manufactures are from Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Korea, China and Germany.

Others are, England, Denmark, France, Belgium, Italy, Romania, United States, Cyprus, Swiss and the United Arab Emirates However the move is not without losers, as many drugs supply companies and agencies for multinational drug manufacturers are likely to lose business worth billions of shillings. Jobs in these companies will also be at stake as the window is shut.