Agadir24
The Confederation of Moroccan Pharmacists’ Unions has sent a complaint to the Director of Medicines and Pharmacy at the Ministry of Health and Social Protection, demanding urgent intervention to stop the distribution of free samples of medicines classified as psychotropic substances to doctors.
The Confederation reported that it had recently observed a laboratory specialised in the manufacture of medicines delivering samples of these substances to a group of doctors in the public and private sectors, stressing that what this laboratory did was “prohibited” under Article 47 of Law 17.04, the Code of Medicines and Pharmacy.
The Confederation pointed out that it had previously repeatedly warned of some laboratories “violating” the law in this area, urging the Directorate of Medicines and Pharmacists to “put an end to the chaos in a radical manner, in a way that deters any laboratory that dares to achieve purely promotional and material purposes through these health lapses and legal violations.”
In response to the issue, Mohamed Al-Hababi, head of the Confederation of Pharmacists’ Unions, revealed that there are several irregularities in the distribution of free drug samples, including “the increasing delivery of free samples of psychotropic drugs by representatives of pharmaceutical companies and laboratories to doctors.”
Al-Hababi explained that “all samples of medicines distributed to doctors, regardless of their type, are dangerous to the health of the Moroccan consumer. When the Ministry of Health and Social Protection announces the ban on some medicines, pharmacists resort to withdrawing them from the shelves of pharmacies, while this remains difficult in the case of medicines delivered by laboratories to doctors, as they can give them to patients.”
The President of the Confederation of Pharmacists’ Unions confirmed that “the next step for the union is to file a complaint on the subject with the Minister of Health and Social Protection, Khalid Ait Taleb, who had previously warned in a ministerial circular dated May 25, 2023 of the need to respect the legal provisions governing the circulation of medicines and health products, including the absolute ban on delivering free samples of psychotropic drugs to doctors.”
For his part, Tayeb Hamdi, a physician and researcher in health policies and systems, acknowledged that “delivering free samples of psychotropic substances is considered a violation of the provisions of Law 17.04 unless it is in response to a written request directed by the physician to the manufacturing laboratory to obtain these drugs.”
However, Hamdi believes that “these samples are placed in the hands of honest doctors who are keen to dispense them for free to patients in the end,” rejecting “the possibility of doctors dispensing some of the medicines distributed by laboratories to patients if the ministry takes a decision to ban them.”
The spokesman noted that “withdrawing any medicine from the market does not happen overnight, but is preceded by months and perhaps years of studies, preparations and discussions through the media, which are followed not only by health professionals, but also by all citizens,” stressing that “doctors, in turn, are informed by the ministry of the withdrawal decision immediately after it is taken.”
It is worth noting that Article 47 of Law 17.04, the Code of Medicines and Pharmacy, stipulates that “it is prohibited to provide samples of medicines containing substances classified as psychotropic substances or narcotics or to which the legislation relating to narcotics applies in whole or in part”, and it also prohibits “the provision of free samples of medicines except to health professionals qualified to prescribe, dispense or use medicines during the practice of their profession in order to identify them within the limits of two boxes of each sample, provided that the samples are identical to the pharmaceutical preparations in question and bear the phrase “free sample, sale prohibited”.
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2024-08-23 02:58:34
