Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto on Tuesday called on Malacañang to create a task force (TF) that will address the dearth in the supply of medicines that can prevent deaths from Covid-19 complications owing to the scarcity of Tocilizumab and other anti-pneumonia drugs.
Recto said that the task force shall include diplomats and taipans who may be able to solve the shortage of these drugs made scarce by the ongoing surge in the number of hospitalized Covid-19 patients.
“Tap those who can help, from diplomats to businessmen with excellent global connections. They may have the personal contacts that bureaucrats do not have,” Recto said in a news statement as he expressed belief that while global supply of Tocilizumab is tight. “The problem can be solved by our best minds,” the senator said.
Funding
As to funding, Recto said “there are billions in reserve in the P151.64 billion Unprogrammed Fund, whose release can be triggered by the ongoing government borrowings.”
He also pushed for an increase in the proposed P29.97 billion Department of Health (DOH) budget for medicines and vaccines next year so that the likes of Tocilizumab and Remdesivir can be included in the shopping list.
And once these medicines are bought, he said, they should be subjected to proper storage and distributed efficiently in order to prevent spoilage.
He stressed that the scarcity of critical drugs should not be aggravated by the government’s poor procurement practice of drugs and the mishandling of the supply chain.
He said some P9.5 billion worth of government medicines was wasted due to expiration, unuse, and poor warehousing from 2016 to 2020.
“Money we have been losing to medicine spoilage can buy many Tocilizumabs,” he said.
“This ‘red flag’ has been a regular feature of the annual audit reports on the agency by the Commission on Audit (COA),” Recto said.
The national government’s budget for the procurement of medicines and vaccines averaged P15.39 billion annually from 2016 to 2020.
For next year, DOH is asking P29.97 billion to restock government pharmacies.
“Of course, it is unreasonable to expect that every pill and every liquid medicine will be consumed to the last drop. But the problem, according to COA, is that many drugs were never even sent to hospitals,” Recto said.
Baricitinib
Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, meanwhile, assured that they expecting more supplies of Tocilizumab this September.
Due to the shortage of Tocilizumab, Duque said, they are looking into the possibility of using Baricitinib as the replacement of the anti-inflammatory drug.
Earlier, DOH admitted that they are facing challenges in sourcing Tocilizumab, which is manufactured in Sweden.
DOH had already sought the assistance of Philippine embassies in Switzerland and the United States in securing even just a portion of their reserve allocations.
On the other hand, Duque said, that there is still enough supply of Remdesivir, another Covid-19 drug, until December this year.