Latest update March 28th, 2024 12:59 AM
Aug 03, 2012 News
– says that counterfeit medicines a major problem
The Ministry of Health has denied that a recent US report about the quality of malaria drugs yesterday saying it does not represent medicines distributed by them.
The Ministry was at the time responding to a headline in the Thursday edition of Kaieteur News which quoted a US media report that “US study reveals…High percentage of poor malaria medicines in Guyana.”
This article which was sourced from a PRNewswire said that the USAID-sponsored study revealed that more than half or 58% of the drugs to treat malaria in “Guyana” are of a “poor quality”.
Further, the article said that there was “…a high failure rate for artesunate monotherapy, a treatment not recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) for Plasmodium Falciparum malaria, the most common type of malaria in the interior of Guyana.”
Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Shamdeo Persaud, said that the US-sourced article stands to be corrected.
Stating that Ministry of Health was informed of the study and had somewhat been a part of it, the official said that those “poor quality” drugs are only reflected by the study of malaria drugs on the private sector market.
He stressed that the Ministry of Health seeks to comply with the drugs recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Persaud provided a list of some of the recommended and non-recommended drugs by WHO, insisting that the Ministry only procure and distribute recommended drugs.
Coartem is a combined treatment drug distributed widely by the Ministry as opposed to a mono-therapy drug given by some of the private hospitals and pharmacies- use of which has been denounced by WHO.
The Ministry also disclosed that it is indeed a fact that drug used for the treatment of malaria which had not been approved by WHO is on the market. She explained that with Guyana having such porous borders, persons have been smuggling such drugs into the country.
The Ministry said that their officials have been clamping down on the system, training more and more of its liaisons in those communities to be on the lookout for the non recommended drugs.
THIS IDIOT TELLING GUYANA WE HAVE NO SAY IN THE 50% PROFIT SHARING AGREEMENT WE HAVE WITH EXXON.
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