The Ministry of Health announced on the morning of May 27 that it plans to establish 3-6 centers to reserve rare drugs nationwide. The number of reserved drugs is about 15-20 types, and botulinum is one of them.
On the morning of May 27, Mr. Le Viet Dung, Deputy Director of the Department of Drug Administration, Ministry of Health , informed about the plan to set up a reserve of rare drugs in the near future, after consecutively recording many cases of botulinum poisoning in Ho Chi Minh City in the past 2 weeks.
Mr. Dung said that the Ministry of Health is urgently implementing the establishment of centers to reserve rare drugs and drugs with limited supply.
"It is expected that 3-6 centers will be established nationwide," Mr. Dung added that the number of reserved drugs on the list is about 15-20 types and botulinum is one of the drugs on this list.
Botulinum toxin antidote in WHO's aid on May 24. Photo: Minh Hoang
The Drug Administration is also meeting with the World Health Organization (WHO) to study the WHO's storage mechanism, how to have a connection between the storage of rare drugs, drugs with low supply in Vietnam as well as neighboring countries in the region, as well as WHO's warehouses.
Currently, the legal basis for rare drugs is basically complete. Therefore, the Drug Administration has issued a document requesting medical facilities nationwide to proactively develop needs, forecast disease situations, estimate necessary quantities and purchase drugs to ensure adequate treatment needs, especially for rare drugs.
The Deputy Director of the Drug Administration Department also said that immediately after receiving the report from the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health on May 21 and Cho Ray Hospital on May 23, the Ministry of Health immediately contacted domestic and foreign drug suppliers and WHO to have medicine available as soon as possible.
The minimum time to deliver drugs to Vietnam from the time of ordering from foreign manufacturers is 14 days. Therefore, according to Mr. Dung, to speed up the process of receiving drugs, the Ministry of Health has proactively contacted WHO to request support in searching for drugs from regional and global drug reserves to be able to meet domestic treatment needs as soon as possible.
WHO announced that there are currently 6 vials of the drug in the global warehouse in Switzerland and immediately sent an expert to transport the drug to Vietnam on the same day. On May 24, the drug was transported to Vietnam and the Ministry of Health transferred it to medical facilities.
However, unfortunately, before being able to use these 6 bottles of medicine, a 45-year-old patient died at Gia Dinh People's Hospital on the evening of May 25, the remaining two cases are still holding on to life with ventilators, completely paralyzed, due to exceeding the golden time for using the medicine.
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