Among banners, tombstones and claims for the work of Hugo López-Gatell, undersecretary of Prevention and Health Promotion, the head of the federal Ministry of Health, Jorge Carlos Alcocer Varela, acknowledged the shortage of cancer drugs in the country.
“Yes, there has been a lack of medicines. What were the factors that led to it? I can quickly point out, these are in a wide range of situations.
“For example, there were reports and complaints associated with the death of children at the Niño Poblano hospital, due to the application of chemotherapy with methotrexate and due to intra-hospital infections related to drugs produced in private mixing plants. Due to sanitary non-compliance, Cofepris suspended the manufacturing line for methotrexate and the manufacturing line for these oncological codes to PISSA, for not meeting quality standards.
“It was even necessary to suspend seven mixing plants with irregularities where the contaminated mixtures that I have mentioned came from,” he said.
He added that another factor was that China and India, which are the main exporters of inputs to make medicines, decreased their production.
He highlighted that in January 2020, 28 keys in potential shortage were identified, before which international purchases were made and during 2021 more than 277,000 pieces of drugs have been distributed in the 26 states attached to Insabi. By 2021, the distribution is scheduled for 30 entities.
In this sense, Alcocer recognized that the distribution of medicines in the country has been an “Achilles heel.”
Given this, he asserted that the federal government is committed to “improving this so-called last mile in the arrival of drugs to the population that requires it, and not only to warehouses, which continue to be one of the Achilles heels.”
Pandemic
On the occasion of the analysis of the Third Report of the Federal Executive Government, the federal official asserted that, since the beginning of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pandemic, more than 180,000 health professionals have been trained throughout the country who have attended to the contingency.
He highlighted that hospital reconversion has been one of the greatest challenges and successes of this administration, since hospital occupancy currently decreased 84% compared to the highest peak of the second epidemic wave. For this reason, the recovery of non-Covid services began in a large part of the states.
On the other hand, during her speech, and with the entire National Action Party (PAN) bench in the rostrum, Deputy Martha Estela Romo, demanded from the Secretary of Health the return of the Seguro Popular, after what she described as the “absolute failure of the Insabi ”. (With editorial information)
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx