KUALA LUMPUR: The federal medicine stockpile will be released to private clinics, hospitals and community pharmacies faced with shortages with immediate effect, says the Health Minister.
Khairy Jamaluddin said the decision was made after a meeting on Thursday with representatives from pharmaceutical associations, industry players and suppliers.
“The stockpile will be released and given to private healthcare facilities to overcome the short-term shortage of medicines.
“The medicine shortage is attributed to exceeding demand this year due to the influenza-like illnesses as well as supply issues caused by lockdown policies in China and the Russia-Ukraine war.
“We have spoken to the manufacturers to increase production, which is expected to stabilise over the next two months,” he said after closing the Autism Spectrum Disorder Strategy Transformation and Empowerment Workshop here yesterday.The minister also said that despite short-term measures to address the issue as announced on June 13, the ministry continued to receive feedback on shortages of medicines, particularly for cough, cold, and fever, as well as medicines for children.
Khairy said the number of medicines that would be released from Pharmaniaga’s stockpile had not been decided yet.
He also said the ministry was still getting requests from the private sector.
Last month, the Malaysian Medical Association warned that an acute shortage in medicine supply will affect the management of patients’ healthcare.
It said the unprecedented demand for common medications had caught pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors off guard and advised the public against panic buying.
Pharmaniaga deputy managing director Iqbal Abdul Rahman said the shortage was expected to be resolved by the end of this month.
“We have started producing more and we can see some normalisation by the end of this month and other products to be available by the end of August,” he said according to a Bernama report.
