Pharmaceutical Society of Zimbabwe (PSZ) president Mr Portiphar Muondera said they are left with medicines that will last about three weeks to a month.
Muondera said this when he appeared before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health and Child Care chaired by Dr Ruth Labode. He said the situation will remain critical as long as they did not settle their US$38 million debt. Speaking last Wednesday, Muondera said they have gone for more than six weeks without any allocations of foreign currency from Government. Said Muondera:
The situation that we are in is critical because we are already noticing shortages of some mainline medicines — painkillers, shortages of anti-diabetic medicines and hypertensive medicines. We have limited supplies that will last us just about three weeks to a month or so in the warehouses. As long as we have not cleared our debts or paid for new supplies we will not achieve much. As an industry we are trying to zero in on issues of sustainability. When we get medicines, it should always be available. If we have disruptions in the supply chain then we have a crisis. We have gone for more than six weeks without any allocations of foreign currency. In September we managed to import medicines worth about $6,8 million into Zimbabwe. In October it fell to $1,5 million and November it was a very sad story.
More: Herald
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