P116m in drugs to be torched

P116m in drugs to be torched

BAME PIET Staff Writer

The drugs were procured during financial years 2004/05, 2005/06, 2006/07, 2007/08 and 2008/09. Mmegi can reveal that another batch of medicines worth P55 million procured during financial years 2009 to 2012/13 is also waiting to be destroyed once the first lot has been torched.

Said the Assistant Minister of Health, Gaotlhaetse Matlhabaphiri, in an exclusive interview with Mmegi yesterday: "The system is such that drugs are not destroyed annually. We still have the expired drugs from September 2004 to September 2009 waiting to be destroyed, and a formal approval has been released (for P55 million worth of drugs for the period September 2009 to June 2012)."

Minister Matlhabaphiri explained that the WHO standards allow for up to five percent of procured drugs to expire and be destroyed. He said there are instances where government is obliged to have drugs for certain diseases such as swine flu, malaria, rabbies, anti-vernom and special diseases or conditions in stock.

"We have to have those drugs in stock. We might have, for instance, anti-vernom drugs and very few cases of snakebite so that the drugs then remain unused. But we can't send them back and stay without the drug in our stock. What do we do when someone is in need of the drug? We have to be prepared for sudden cases. It is the same with malaria and other diseases."

The minister said with special diseases, a quantity drugs should always be in stock in accordance with WHO standards. "Some of these drugs cost a lot of money but have a short lifespan," he noted.

"However, for special cases, we return the drugs back to the manufacturer who will then replace them with new ones, but only if we have a certificate showing that they have been destroyed."

The challenge, he said, is that the system in Botswana allows CMS to destroy expired drugs only after five years. In the meantime, the government is required to procure the same drugs every year before the old stock is destroyed.

The Ministry of Health is now waiting for authorisation to destroy drugs valued at P55 million that were procured between October 2009 and June 2012, which can only be done after a batch valued at P61 million has been destroyed.He said most of commodities at CMS have a shelf life of two to five years and that by the time they are destroyed, they reflect in the Public Accounts Committee and the Auditor General's report for the year in which they were destroyed. Matlhabaphiri said the recent revelation that drugs valued at P21 were destroyed prior to the transformation of CMS in 2009 prompted a question in Parliament. The drugs were for years before 2008, he added. "As you know, before 2008, CMS had no control measures and in 2009 we requested PEPFAR (the United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) to assist us with a team experts to work with us to run CMS," he said.

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P116m in drugs to be torched