3 to 6 centers will be established to reserve rare drugs and drugs with limited supply.

At the regular Government press conference in May 2023, Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Lien Huong informed the press about resolving the drug shortage, especially in preparation for organizing expanded vaccination campaigns and solutions to completely resolve the drug shortage and medical equipment (MTEE) shortage.

Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Lien Huong informed at the Press Conference.

According to Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Lien Huong, recently, the Ministry of Health has proactively and actively coordinated with ministries and branches to implement many measures to remove difficulties in the field of medical equipment and medicine shortages, especially rare drugs.

Specifically, regarding the issue of equipment : To ensure the supply of medical equipment, the Ministry of Health has consulted and submitted to the Government to issue Decree No. 07/2023/ND-CP dated March 3, 2023 amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decree No. 98/2021/ND-CP dated November 8, 2021 on the management of medical equipment, including a number of solutions to ensure the supply related to the import of medical equipment and to date has basically resolved the shortage of medical equipment related to import procedures, specifically:

Regarding import licenses : The validity of over 12,500 medical equipment import licenses has been extended until December 31, 2024.

Regarding the issuance of circulation numbers for medical equipment, up to now : Type A medical equipment has been issued to 27,847 records; Type B medical equipment has been issued to 14,508 records; Type C and D medical equipment has been issued to 1,673 records.

Regarding the issue of drug shortages, especially rare drugs, according to Ms. Nguyen Thi Lien Huong , the shortage of drug supply only occurs for some specialized drugs and rare drugs due to difficulties in supply, undefined demand due to rare diseases and unforeseen timing and quantity. "For example: Antidotes, antitoxins (BAT), anti-snake venom serum. In addition, due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Europe, the global supply chain for some drugs such as Albumin, Globulin is broken, these drugs are in short supply in almost every country", Ms. Huong said.

To ensure drug supply, Deputy Minister Nguyen Thi Lien Huong said that the Ministry of Health has reported to the Government to submit to the National Assembly Resolution No. 80/2023/QH15, which allows eligible drugs to have their circulation validity extended until the end of 2024.

Accordingly, from the beginning of 2023 to now, the Ministry of Health has announced 4 batches with a total of 10,572 drugs (8,204 domestic drugs, 2,143 foreign drugs, 225 vaccines, biological products) that continue to use circulation registration certificates until December 31, 2024. In addition, the Ministry of Health has also licensed nearly 3,000 drugs that do not have registration numbers according to the provisions of the Pharmacy Law, valid for 3-5 years. With this newly issued number, there are currently about 22,000 drug registration numbers with circulation visas with about 800 active ingredients of all kinds. Therefore, the supply of drugs on the market is basically guaranteed.

Press reporters attending the press conference.

Regarding solutions in the coming time to ensure the supply of medical equipment and drugs, especially rare drugs, Ms. Huong said that the Ministry of Health has closely coordinated with the Ministry of Planning and Investment to review and propose amendments to a number of contents included in the draft revised Law on Bidding this time to remove difficulties in procurement.

In addition, for particularly rare drugs and drugs with limited supply, the Ministry of Health has reported and proposed to the Government and the Government has agreed to develop a mechanism to ensure rare drugs and drugs with limited supply. The Ministry of Health has been urgently implementing the plan to establish 3-6 centers to reserve rare drugs and drugs with limited supply. "This will also be a fundamental solution to ensure particularly rare drugs for use in emergency situations," Ms. Huong emphasized.

Regarding the implementation of the Expanded Immunization Program, Deputy Minister Nguyen Thi Lien Huong informed that the Ministry of Health has reviewed the vaccine sources from 2022 to present. For domestically produced vaccines, the Expanded Immunization Program has provided enough vaccines for 2022 and will last until July 2023. Hepatitis B vaccine and Tuberculosis vaccine will be enough to last until August 2023, and Japanese encephalitis vaccine will be enough to last until September 2023. Measles vaccine, measles-rubella vaccine, and bOPV will be enough to last until July 2023; and current tetanus and polio vaccines will be enough to last until the end of 2023.

"The imported 5-in-1 vaccine is enough until early 2023. Because this is an imported vaccine, in 2022, bidding and procurement procedures were carried out according to regulations, but no contractors participated," said Ms. Huong.

According to Ms. Nguyen Thi Lien Huong, in the period of 2016-2020, implementing the Population Health Target Program for the period of 2016-2020, the Ministry of Health was allocated central budget funds to place orders for 9 domestically produced vaccines. These vaccines have only one domestic manufacturer and these are units under the Ministry of Health, so the Ministry has implemented the ordering mechanism. For imported vaccines, the Ministry of Health has implemented the procurement mechanism through UNICEF in the form of selecting contractors in special cases according to Article 26 of the Bidding Law or implementing centralized bidding when meeting the conditions of having 3 or more registrations.

In the period of 2021 - 2022, according to the Law on Public Investment (amended) in 2019, there is no longer a health and population target program, but only a number of activities are integrated into the expenditure content of the 3 national target programs for the period of 2021 - 2025 and there is no content on vaccine purchase, the remaining contents are converted into regular tasks of ministries, central agencies and localities. Therefore, in order to have a suitable roadmap when converting the mechanism from purchasing with the central budget to transferring to localities for implementation, the National Assembly issued Resolution No. 129/2020 on the allocation of the central budget in 2021, accordingly, the Ministry of Health is assigned the estimated source from the central budget to carry out procurement to supply vaccines for the Expanded Immunization Program to ensure for 2 years 2021, 2022 and overlap the first months of 2023.

"To implement the content of 2023, to remove difficulties and obstacles for localities, it is necessary to continue purchasing vaccines for the Expanded Immunization Program as in previous years," Ms. Huong emphasized.

The Deputy Minister of Health also said that the Ministry has built the State budget estimate for 2023, proposed to allocate funds for the Ministry of Health to purchase vaccines for the Expanded Immunization Program and submitted to the Government a report and draft resolution on this content. The Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha has strongly directed the Ministry of Health to coordinate with the Ministry of Finance to arrange funds and the central budget for 2023 to implement vaccine purchases according to regulations as in previous years. The Ministry of Health has sent an official dispatch to 63 provinces and cities, so far has synthesized enough vaccine needs of 63 provinces and has directed vaccine supply units to prepare for work according to regulations.

"Currently, the Ministry of Health and other ministries are working hard to ensure adequate vaccine supply for the Expanded Immunization Program," Ms. Huong emphasized.

Source: https://www.congluan.vn/se-hinh-thanh-3-den-6-trung-tam-du-tru-thuoc-hiem-thuoc-han-che-nguon-cung-post250249.html