The Pharmaceuticals fund and Supply agency (PFSA) says all stakeholders involved in supply of medicines should play their own parts to balance the supply and demand of medicines across the country.
Public relations and communication director of the agency, Aduna Bere told WMC that partners participating in the supply chains of medicines should strive to meet the ever increasing demand of medicines across the country.
According to Adina, many stakeholders involved in supply chains of medicines from procurement stage to the distributions and marketing. Corrective measurements should be taken on stakeholders that are against the rational use of medicines, she indicated.
Adina noted that agency distributes medicines worth of 18.8 bln birr across the country during the last budget year. The total supply of medicine provided by the agency is not sufficient compare to the demand of the country , she underscored.
Government needs to give additional supports to build up the capacities of local pharmaceutical industries in order to improve supply of medicines across the country, she underlined.
Agency has planned to procure medicines with a total cost of 1.2 bln birr, but only managed to purchase 52 percent of the amount of medicines during the last budget year., she stated . The local pharmaceuticals have limited production capacity to meet the demand of the agency , she added.
Ethiopia imports 80 percent of medicine from abroad and also 40 percent of the national health service budget spend for medicine procurement, Wlata learnt.