DGDA under pressure to increase medicine price

Staff Reporter :
Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA) is under huge pressure to increase prices of medicines from the manufacturers, said its Directorate General on Wednesday.
 Meanwhile, Health Minister Zahid Maleque said that per head health cost is now $54 in Bangladesh.
“We are under huge pressure to hike prices of medicines from the drug manufacturers, as the raw materials prices are increased internationally,” said Major General Mohammad Yousuf, Director General of the DGDA.
The DG said it while addressing National Health Accounts Sixth Round Final Results Notification Workshop in a city hotel in the capital.
“In the wake of Russia-Ukraine war, increase of US Dollars value and such other crisis created massive pressures on us to hike medicine price in the country. We are trying to keep the medicine price stable,” Mohammad Yousuf said.
The DG said that about 98 percent medicines are produced in the country. Only two pc of those are needed to import from abroad. As such, there will be no major problem, he added.
He also suggested the medicine manufacturers to shun the way of aggressive marketing.
The DG said, “If the physicians avoid of taking gifts from the drug manufacturers, the pressure of increasing medicine price also can be decreased.”
Health Minister Zahid Maleque said in the event that per head health service cost in the country is now Tk 5000 (USD 54).
He said that it is lower than per head medical cost in Maldives and Sri Lanka. “There are 37 thousand crore
 Taka are allotted for the health ministry where the home ministry’s allocation is Tk 40 thousand crore. Besides, several NGOs also are also working in this field,” Zahid Maleque said.
The health minister said that sometimes, the allocations could not been expend adequately.
“If the health sector suffers from such irregularities, the country could not be advanced,” he said.
Zahid Maleque said that responsibility and surveillance is a must now to ensure good governance in health sector.
He also gave importance on initiate health insurance for ensuring health services for all as like developed countries.
Health minister said that public expenditures in health services are high, but the spending of the government also have to count.
There are many logistics and awareness programme to be conducted in this sector which also cost huge money from the government.
Muhammad Anwar Hossain Howlader, Secretary of Health services Department said in the event that it is heard that some physicians used to perform Umrah with the medicine producers money.
He said that such a practice is not ethical and most of the pharmaceuticals companies in the country are not doing marketing ethically.