Egypt’s Pharmacists' Syndicate and pharmaceutical companies will begin enforcing a commonly-agreed strategy to dispose of expired medicine on Sunday as a means of defending public health and to combat illegal recycling and related fraud.
Mohey Ebeid, head of the Pharmacists' Syndicate, said the enforcement of the agreement will help withdraw expired medicines from pharmacies worth more than LE600 billion. He said the agreement applies only to locally-manufactured drugs and lasts for three renewable months.
"We have 1,300 pharmaceutical companies and the agreement could draw the opposition of 20 or 30 of those companies, and we will boycott them in that case,” Ebeid said during a syndicate conference in Daqahlia on Friday. “The agreement is not secret, but some provisions will only be declared in time…I swear I will stand against the health minister if he stonewalls the agreement.”
Ebeid urged pharmacists to keep invoices of their medicine purchases to use when returning outdated drugs to their manufacturers.
Meanwhile, Mohamed Saudi, a former undersecretary of the syndicate, lambasted the agreement, labelling it “catastrophic”. Saudi, speaking to Al-Masry Al-Youm, criticized its signatories for “unilaterally” signing it away from the Health Ministry.
“Pharmaceutical companies are the primary beneficiaries of the agreement, which deals with medicines as a mere commodity and considers the relationship between companies and pharmacists a sheerly commercial one that does not allow interference by the state through the Health Ministry,” said Saudi. “Expired drugs are a national security issue that affects patients’ health, and the Health Ministry should act as the safe guarantor of their disposal.”
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
