Mozambique: Country to reorganise drug warehouses to improve distribution

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Mozambique: Country to reorganise drug warehouses to improve distribution

10:05 CAT | 01 Nov 2019

File photo: Noticias

Mozambique’s ministry of health is to reorganise drug warehouses throughout the country to try to improve distribution, making it faster and more efficient, an official source said on Thursday.

“We have to eliminate the administrative divisions, reduce the district warehouses and move to 30 intermediate ones,” António Assane, director of the Central Medical Devices and Material (CMAM) of Mozambique, said at a press conference.

Currently, medicines in one of the 154 Mozambican districts cannot be transferred to another that needs them, a problem that will be corrected, he said.

On the other hand, the state expects to save about $6 million (€5.3 million) per year.

With this new model, the responsibility and control will be made at the central level, because the medicine will leave the intermediate stores directly to each health unit, he said.

The state plans a central medicine plant, three regional warehouses in the country’s largest urban centres and 30 intermediate stores that will supply the health units in less than ten hours.

The measure is part of a strategic plan approved in 2014 and is being tested in the district of Vilanculos, Inhambane.

The reform aims to ensure that vital, safe and effective medicines are available in good condition, when and in the quantities needed, at the lowest possible cost to patients.

The United Nations estimates that, on average, 10.5% of medicines in middle- and low-income countries (such as Mozambique) are of inferior quality or forged.

The country has also experienced chronic difficulties in drug replacement: a 2017 study by the Centre for Public Integrity (CPI), a Mozambican civil society organisation, found cases in which drug replacement took nine months.

A year ago, the health minstry inaugurated a new drug warehouse in Nampula, in the north of the country, considered the most modern in the southern region and which resulted from a donation of €6.7 million from the US.

Work has also begun on two others in Zambezia and Manica, the centre of the country.

The warehouse in Zimpeto, Maputo province is benefiting from rehabilitation and expansion and will be delivered this year.

In the city of Beira, there is also a warehouse that was rehabilitated due to the damage caused by Cyclone Idai at the beginning of the year.

CMAM receives $116 million (€148 million) from the annual state budget to purchase medicines, laboratory supplies, blood bank supplies, vaccines – and is seeking to maintain a stock of medicines for nine months.

In addition to this money, it also receives aid from Mozambican partners, who contribute $300 million (€248 million) for medicines, materials and actions to combat malaria, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis.

Source: Lusa