Dependence on pharmaceutical ingredients was accentuated with the war, says CNS counselor

In an interview with CNN this Friday (22), the national health adviser of the National Health Council (CNS), Débora Melecchi, said that the war in Ukraine has impacted the lack of medicines in Brazil.

Débora points out that dependence on pharmaceutical ingredients from other countries reflects on the country’s health.

“Brazil has a very large external dependency. Even today, we depend on at least 90% of inputs from China and India. Along with this context, when there is this war in Ukraine, it ends up reflecting directly on our country”, he says.

Last week, a survey by the National Confederation of Municipalities (CNM) pointed out that 80.4% of the 2,469 municipalities that responded to the consultation reported a lack of basic medicines for pharmaceutical assistance.

The list includes drugs to treat chronic conditions or mild symptoms. The highest reported absences were of amoxicillin (68%), dipyrone (65.6%), injectable dipyrone (50.6%), prednisolone (45.3%), azithromycin (42%) and ambroxol (39.6%) .

According to Débora, the reality is very hard for patients. “This scenario is very serious for public health. But I observe that not only in the public one, in the private hospital as well. Even in pharmacies,” she assessed.

She also says that it is necessary for the country to seek “self-sufficiency”.

“We need to resume the so-called industrial economic health complex, a complex that articulates the provision of services, public policies and strengthens laboratories for public production”, he says.

THE CNN consulted the Ministry of Health and the National Council of Health Secretaries (Conass) on the observations and conclusions of the CNM survey.

In a note, the Ministry of Health stated that it works to keep the health network supplied with all the medicines offered by the SUS and that measures were adopted to circumvent the problem, such as a resolution that releases criteria for establishing or adjusting prices for medicines with risk of shortages, in addition to the inclusion of pharmaceuticals in the list of products with reduced import tax on inputs.