The Tunisian pharmaceutical market is experiencing a shortage of certain vital drugs, mainly affecting the treatment for thyroid, certain cancers and mental disorders. This situation directly weakens patients, while health authorities minimize the risk of deprivation of care.
According to Thouraya Ennaifer, secretary general of the National Council of the Order of Pharmacists of Tunisia (CNOPT):
“The Tunisian pharmaceutical market records a shortage of certain drugs, highly noted during the past week. »»
Private patients of essential treatments
Among the products concerned are the treatments for the thyroid, mental illnesses and certain cancers. These ruptures, which mainly affect imported drugs, directly expose patients to treatment interruptions, with heavy consequences on their state of health.
According to Ennaifer, the shortage stems from “financial and logistical difficulties at the central pharmacy of Tunisia”, which has still not received its claims from the National Health Insurance Fund (CNAM). This financial impasse slows the importation and blocks the supply of strategic drugs.
For many chronic patients, each rupture becomes an obstacle course, between pharmacies looking for alternatives and risk of medical complications.
Pharmacists call for a quick reaction
The CNOPT claims concrete measures to stem the crisis. Ennaifer pleads for “regular holding of the meeting of the pharmacovigilance committee within the National Agency for Medicines and Health Products (ANMPS)”, scheduled once a month, in order to develop sustainable solutions.
Faced with the multiplication of alerts, the Ministry of Health wanted to reassure. In a press release Recent, he denied any deprivation of care, ensuring that the national drug strategy aims on the contrary to guarantee the availability of treatments, in particular thanks to the rationalization of prescriptions and the encouragement of generics.
