Lack of medicines in Mozambique “alarming” – CIP

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Lack of medicines in Mozambique “alarming” – CIP

2:38 CAT | 11 Jul 2018

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Mozambican civil society organisation Public Integrity Centre (CIP) considers the lack of medicines in Mozambican health facilities to be alarming and says that the logistical distribution of medicine in the country is “inefficient.”

The CIP understands that the medicine crisis in Mozambique is far from being overcome, in an analysis entitled ‘Lack of medicines is associated with the precariousness of logistics’.

In the study, carried out from the 20th of September to the 6th of October 2017, the organisation reports that it has detected cases in which the replacement of the supply of medicine took nine months.

“In the 12 districts covered by the survey, 100 percent of district deposits had run out of medicinal stock three months prior to the survey,” CIP says.

The document continued to state that the survey on the health sector found that a large number of public health service users still do not receive the prescribed medicines in the right amount and at the right time.

The survey says: “Compared to 2015, the situation has deteriorated. Deposits experienced more out of stock situations and received fewer medicines than they expected to receive”.

The visits and interviews with the various stakeholders in the logistics chain of medicine led the CIP analysis to conclude that the sector not only requires procurement efficiency, but also needs to improve in storage and distribution management.

The CIP further mentions that there is a shortage and mismanagement of human resources in the medicine sector and added that the management of district deposits continues to be carried out by pharmaceutical personnel supported by a few workers and some administrative staff.

“We have seen a significant increase in human resources in the pharmacy area in some districts, neglecting the need for logistics professionals,” the analysis said.

The shortage of human resources for pharmacy and pharmaceutical logistics is also worsened by the imbalance across the country.

“The provinces of Zambézia and Nampula in 2017 had the worst ratios of pharmacy professionals per 100,000 inhabitants. Meanwhile, Maputo and Inhambane present ratios above the national average,” the study said.

A report by Lusa in April found that state-run pharmacies in Maputo face a shortage of essential medicines, thus depriving of medicines those patients who can not afford to go to private pharmacies.

In statements to Lusa, pharmacists at the time reported that they sometimes go for as long as two or more months without the replacement of basic medicines, such as Aspirin, Fansidar, used to combat malaria, Chlorphenamine, an anti-influenza, and Amofiline, an anti-asthmatic.

Source: Lusa