World Bank to grant US$ 10mn for essential drugs

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By Editor_1
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COLOMBO – The World Bank under its emergency reliefs program has agreed to grant funds for Sri Lanka to purchase essential drugs needed immediately by the health sector, Finance Minister Ali Sabry said.

Sabry told a private television channel that as per discussions the Ministries of Health and Finance held with the World Bank, the global multilateral funding agency has agreed to a US$ 10 million grant to purchase essential drugs by next week.

“It is not enough.  But it is still a big amount considering the situation,” Sabry said, hopeful Sri Lanka would receive the money by next week.

Meanwhile, the Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA) confirmed on Tuesday (12) that the health sector was experiencing shortage of 237 essential drugs including antibiotics.
Secretary GMOA, Dr. Senal Fernando, said due rising shortage of medicine, the health  sector was likely to witness a worse crisis than what the country suffered during the Covid pandemic.

“This is a crisis that arose due to lack of foreign currency and people may think this only affects the state-run facilities. But, this will eventually affect the private health facilities as well,” Fernando warned, noting that there was a shortage of medicine for every type of disease that is being treated.

Sri Lanka’s commercial banks had stopped issuing letters of credit to the private importers from February onwards as they did not have US dollars, while the government focused on purchasing fuel for public consumption and power generation in the country.

Due to the situation, several hospitals announced temporary suspensions of surgeries and other operations.

With the stocks running out, GMOA invited international organizations and Sri Lankans abroad to send medicines and other essential medical equipment to the country.

It also asked possible suppliers to get products that are already registered by the National Medicines Regulatory Authority (NMRA), through local agents.

“If the donations are arranged from overseas, please try to get products registered in recognized regulatory bodies such as US FDA, EMA, MHRA, and TGA Australia,” GMOA said referring to drug approving bodies.

In a related development, Sri Lanka Federation for Health Professionals (FHP)  on Tuesday warned the health sector was facing limitations in continuing CT and MRI Scans, Linear Accelerator and some laboratory automation machines as well as ventilators used for patient management due to the ongoing economic crisis.

“The loan bill of the Ministry of Health for equipment maintenance alone is Rs  5 billion. As this situation continues, those services will be discontinued and the lifespan and efficiency of those devices will be greatly compromised,” Convener of the FHP, and the president of the College of Laboratory Professionals, Ravi Kumudesh told reporters.

Sabry said the finance ministry, during discussion with the World bank, had asked for several funds as short term solutions due to the country’s current economic situation.

“We met the World Bank agents and we believe they will give us another US$ 500 million as immediate relief for the next 6 months for specific reasons such as to give incentives for farmers,” he said, adding that the government was also looking to  give an incentive for low income families.

-economynext.com/ENCL

 

Editor_1
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