Ensuring the supply of medicines for epidemic prevention and control and the demand for medicines during the Lunar New Year holiday in 2025 in Vietnam

Ensuring the supply of medicines for epidemic prevention and control and the demand for medicines during the Lunar New Year holiday in 2025 in Vietnam​ (Image from the internet)

On December 2, 2024, the Drug Administration issued Official Dispatch 3847/QLD-KD on ensuring the supply of medicines for disease prevention and the demand for medicine use during the Gregorian New Year and Lunar New Year in 2025.

Ensuring the supply of medicines for epidemic prevention and control and the demand for medicines during the Lunar New Year holiday in 2025 in Vietnam

To adequately meet the demand for medicines for public health care, particularly in disease prevention potentially occurring in the Winter - Spring season, as well as medicines for the demand during the Gregorian New Year and Lunar New Year, the Drug Administration requires:

- Health departments of provinces and centrally-managed cities:

+ Direct hospitals, disease control centers, and health facilities in the area to promptly develop plans and implement medicine procurement to ensure readiness in the adequate supply of medicines, absolutely avoiding scarcity or shortage of medicines for public health care, ensuring quality and reasonable prices, preventing sudden price hikes, with special focus on ensuring readiness for medicine supply for emergency care; disease prevention medicines, particularly those required during the Lunar New Year and treatment of common winter-spring diseases such as dengue fever, flu A, hand-foot-mouth disease, measles, rubella, diarrhea caused by the Rota virus, respiratory and gastrointestinal infectious diseases.

The head of the medical examination and treatment facility is responsible for ensuring the adequate supply of quality medicines for emergency, examination, and treatment necessities at such facilities; organizing nighttime medicine sales at district-level or higher examination and treatment facilities.

+ Direct hospitals and pharmaceutical business facilities in the area to implement exhaustive storage plans and strengthen management measures to prevent sudden price hikes during long holidays and when outbreaks occur.

+ Direct Health Department Inspectors to cooperate with relevant units to strengthen inspection and supervision of compliance with pharmaceutical professional regulations and regulations on the production, business, and import of medicines concerning business facilities in the area. Emphasize detecting counterfeit, substandard medicines, non-permitted circulating medicines; actions of hoarding, price gouging... and strictly handle any detected cases.

+ Direct the organization of 24/7 medicine sales and broadly disseminate information through mass media to promptly meet patients' medicine needs, prohibiting stockpiling, and price increases during the Gregorian New Year and Lunar New Year in 2025.

+ Assign specialized staff to be on duty 24/7 during the Gregorian New Year and Lunar New Year in 2025 to monitor the situation and ensure medicine supply in the area, reporting to the Drug Administration before December 29, 2024, to enhance coordination (Please provide the name, title, and contact number of the specialized staff).

- Hospitals under the Ministry to proactively contact medicine supply facilities to place orders, monitor delivery progress, and promptly procure additional supplies in case of medicine shortages, ensuring readiness for medicine supply, absolutely avoiding the occurrence of medicine shortages for public health care.

- Medicine production and import facilities to increase supply, develop, and execute plans to provide medicine to meet public health care needs, urgently supply adequate medicines upon receiving orders from medical examination, and treatment facilities, avoiding stockpiling, exploiting the Tet Holiday to raise medicine prices.

- The Vietnam Society of Pharmacists, Vietnam Pharmaceutical Business Association, and Vietnam Pharmaceutical Corporation send documents to member organizations and individuals to implement the contents of section 3 of this dispatch.

- In case of difficulties or supply issues, Units should report to the Drug Administration (Business Management Department, Phone: 0243.8461525, Dr. Nguyen Duc Toan - Deputy Head of the Business Management Department: 0988884975, Master Nguyen Huy Ngoc - Specialist of Business Management Department: 0904190240) for guidance.

Refer to detailed content in Official Dispatch 3847/QLD-KD dated December 2, 2024.

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