BUENOS AIRES – The final phase in delivering millions of generic drugs to Argentina’s national health programme was recently completed, ensuring access to essential medicines for the country’s most vulnerable population.
The “REMEDIAR” programme of the Argentine Ministry of Health has been functioning since 2002. Its goal is to guarantee free access to essential medicines through direct distribution to over 6,500 primary healthcare centres. The programme puts special emphasis on providing assistance to those living below the poverty line, the homeless and those without medical coverage.
UNOPS Argentina Operations Centre supports the Ministry of Health by managing the tendering and procurement process for $11 million worth of generic medicines. The delivery of the drugs is being implemented in three phases with the last one taking place late-November 2009.
The sets of the procured drugs contain millions of doses of basic medicines such as ranitidine, used for treating gastrointestinal-diseases, cefalexin, an effective antibiotic for bacterial infections in the respiratory system, atenolol for treating cardiovascular diseases, the anti-diabetic glibenclamide, the painkillers aspirin and paracetamol as well as amoxicillin, an antibiotic derived from penicillin.