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| A drug store of a hospital in HCM City. Under HCM City’s price stabilisation programme, 563 locally produced drugs in 21 categories will be sold at 5-10 per cent lower than market prices until next March. — Photo vnexpress.net |
HCM CITY — Under HCM City’s price stabilisation programme, 563 locally produced drugs in 21 categories will be sold at 5-10 per cent lower than market prices until next March, according to the city Department of Health.
Speaking at a meeting in HCM City yesterday to review the programme’s outcomes in 2015 and discuss plans for this year, Phạm Khánh Phong Lan, the department director, said more and more leading pharmaceutical firms have been signing up for the programme since its launch in 2011, ensuring a steady supply of essential medicines and helping prevent price surges.
Fourteen firms meeting GMP-WHO standards are taking part this year, including Savipharm and Imexpharm for the first time, against just four in 2011, she said.
Đỗ Văn Dũng, head of the department’s pharmaceutical management division, said the number of medicines sold at stabilised prices also increased to 551 last year from 45 in the inaugural year.
The number of drugstores taking part increased from 400 in 2011 to 3,852 last year, or more than 70 per cent of the city’s shops, he said.
The number is expected to reach 4,000 this year, he added.
Nguyễn Quốc Định, deputy director general of Imexpharm, which has registered to sell 20 medicines, said his company is committed to supplying quality drugs at stable prices.
Dũng said the programme is unique to the city.
The 21 drug categories are mostly related to the treatment of normal and chronic problems like pain, fever, allergies, diarrhoea, stomach ache, cough, diabetes, cardiovascular conditions, infectious diseases (anbiotics), worms and rheumatism besides vitamins, mineral supplements and others. — VNS
