Medicine Shortage Threatens two Million Patients in Brazil

By Xiu Ying, Contributing Reporter

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – On March 12th, 2019, a letter from the National Council of Health Secretaries (Conass) addressed to Luiz Henrique Mandetta’s cabinet warned that the situation concerning public drug supplies in all states of the federation is critical.

The document outlined an overview of the shortage, a problem that has dragged on for years, but worsened in the early months of the Jair Bolsonaro administration.

Out of a total of 134 medicines that are compulsorily distributed by the Ministry of Health, 25 are in zero supply in all states and another 18 are expected to be exhausted within the next 30 days.

Brazilian media giant “O Globo” analyzed reports from ten state health secretaries and another Conass document sent to the federal government calling for provisions to deal with the problem.

According to them, the country is experiencing the most significant crisis in the supply of medicines for the public health system in its history.

Two million patients rely on medicines that are scarce or whose supply will be finished within the next few days, according to Conass.

Among those whose supply is already exhausted are drugs that treat diseases such as breast cancer, children’s leukemia, and various kinds of inflammation.

Medication is also scarce for people who have recently received kidney and liver transplants.

Without this type of medicine, it is possible that transplanted organs will need to be removed and discarded since the drug would prevent the recipient’s body from rejecting the new organ.

In just ten states, including Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, and Pernambuco, more than 20,000 transplants depend on drugs provided by the federal government.

The Ministry of Health says that since January, it has tried to regulate the supply of medicines purchased.

According to the file, many purchase processes were not started in due time, and that because of this, “deliveries are occurring in an untimely manner.”

In all, 12 acquisition processes were finalized and 52 are underway. “Therefore, the expectation is that the signing of purchase contracts to regularize most of the drug supply will continue throughout May,” the note says.

Warnings Were Issued

The Ministry of Health had been warned several times about the scarcity states were experiencing.

Conass’s most recent document says that shortages hit mainly “people with chronic diseases,” and that it causes “social, clinical, and not the least important, economic consequences.”

“This is a major concern for state managers in respect to planning actions for access, and especially in the quality and safety of patient care,” says the council’s text, which asks the file to prioritize the subject.

Pará Secretary of Health and president of Conass, Alberto Beltrame, says that the current government is not the only one to blame for the supply crisis and that it is caused by poor management within the ministry, which cannot end bids on schedule or force distributor companies to honor their contracts.

“We are in the worst moment of the crisis, which is in fact when the shelves are empty.
It is possibly the biggest shortage we have ever faced. This causes severe damage to patients,” says Beltrame.