TheDrug Administration of Vietnam has asked all health departments andpharmaceutical firms nationwide to apply prompt measures to stabilise drugprices.
Anofficial document issued early this week by administration director Truong QuocCuong aims to hold the line on drug prices, enhance market supervision, andensure sufficient supplies of essential medicines.
"Provincialhealth departments should guide firms to prepare sufficient supplies ofmedicine for disease prevention and treatment by the public and local healthfacilities, in need to avoid shortages," wrote Cuong.
Thedocument's release followed reports in some newspapers as well as consumercomplaints about stiff hikes in the prices of some imported medicines.
NationalAssembly Social Affairs Committee vice chairman Nguyen Van Tien said at arecent meeting in Hanoithat drugs were being sold at prices up to 20 times higher their productioncosts.
Buta survey of nearly 5,300 pharmaceutical products conducted by the VietnamPharmaceutical Manufacture and Trade Association showed only a modest increasein drug prices in the first six months of this year, with domesticpharmaceuticals rising by an average of five percent and imported drugs anaverage of 6.1 percent.
Cuong'sstatement urged local health officials to increase efforts to inspect andmanage drug prices and ordered companies and relevant agencies to try to cutmanufacturing and transaction costs in order to minimise price increases.
"Anyviolations found, e.g., speculation or excessive price hikes, will be dealtwith strictly," he said.
Thedocument also requested pharmaceutical firms to take measures to ensureuninterrupted drug supplies, especially pharmaceuticals used in medicalexamination and treatment facilities.
HauGiang Pharmaceutical Joint Stock Co general director Pham Thi Viet Nga saidthat drug manufacturing and distribution companies have been pressured in thepast to hold down the prices of essential products, but these were dependent onfactors such as foreign exchange fluctuations and the costs of fuel or rawmaterials.
"Weexpect drug prices to rise generally as a result of increases in the costs ofmany pharmaceutical materials," said Nga. She predicted that prices wouldincrease unless Government measures were particularly well-implemented in thefinal months of the year.
Hau Giang Pharmaceutical offers about 300 pharmaceuticalproducts, accounting for about 10 percent of the domestic market./.
