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| Pymepharco employees in Phu Yen Province pack medicine boxes. Domestic companies are being encouraged to produce more drugs to meet demand. — VNA/VNS Photo Duong Ngoc |
HA NOI (Biz Hub) — The Health Ministry launched a development plan for the pharmaceutical sector on Saturday in co-operation with the World Health Organisation.
Under the plan, Vietnamese companies will produce 20 per cent of materials for drug production and 80 per cent of drugs used in healthcare by 2020.
Additionally, there will be one pharmacist for every 4,000 people. All drug stores, vaccines and biological products verification centres and 50 per cent of testing centres will meet Good Pharmacy Practices standards.
Deputy Minister of Health Pham Le Tuan said at the conference that Viet Nam had integrated successfully with other countries to provide sufficient drugs for the market.
However, patients were often given the wrong prescriptions and clinical pharmacists were incompetent at providing correct usage information.
Moreover, drug producers could only produce simple generic drugs, as they spent little on research and development and operated without macroeconomic direction.
As of November, 39,000 drug retailers, 133 drug producers and 10,000 drug stores met Good Pharmacy Practices standards. Vietnamese companies were also able to produce vaccines to prevent 10 of the 12 diseases listed in its vaccination programme.
Tuan urged companies to work with suppliers to utilise Vietnamese raw materials and improve control over their origin and quality. — VNS