[ad_1]
BRASÍLIA – Even with more than 2.5 million tablets of hydroxychloroquine stranded in towns, the Ministry of Health plans to spend up to R $ 250 million to offer the drug, in addition to the antibiotic azithromycin, in the program Popular Pharmacy. The plan provides for reimbursement to accredited pharmacies to distribute the products that make up the so-called “covid kit” for free. These drugs have no proven efficacy against new coronavirus, but they became the government’s bet Jair bolsonaro to cope with the pandemic. Now, the idea is to use public money to distribute free in pharmacies.
Braided hydroxychloroquine tablets are not part of the kit, which can be distributed free of charge. In Farmácia Popular, the affiliated establishments deliver medicines free or with up to a 90% discount and receive reimbursement for the amount they paid to the industry. With the same R $ 250 million planned to distribute the “kit-covid”, the government could buy 13.18 million doses of the vaccine produced by Oxford University and the laboratory AstraZeneca, at the price of R $ 18.95 per unit, enough to immunize almost 7 million people. Revealed by Status In September, the study to insert the drug in Farmácia Popular has been secretly in the ministry since the beginning of July. This week, the proposal received the approval of the legal area and reached the minister Eduardo Pazuello.
You will need a prescription to remove the “covid kit”. According to the price list defined by the federal government, it costs R $ 25 for each box with ten tablets of 400 mg hydroxychloroquine sulfate, a drug indicated in the leaflet for rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and malaria. Ten tablets of the antibiotic azithromycin 500 mg are worth R $ 35 – values considering the ICMS of São Paulo.
Values
Since the start of the pandemic, Bolsonaro has boosted the production of chloroquine (a drug different from hydroxychloroquine, but with similar functions) in the Army Laboratory, which manufactured more than 3.2 million pills. In November, there were more than 400 thousand units in stock. The country also received about 3 million hydroxychloroquine pills from the president of the United States, Donald Trump, and the pharmaceutical company Sandoz, but has not yet managed to distribute even 500,000 units. In addition to the low demand, the drug was shipped in boxes of 100 or 500 pills and must be divided, with a cost transferred to the states and municipalities.
The president has insisted on promoting the drug even after a series of studies, carried out in different countries, have failed to show any benefit. Two ministers of health (Luiz Henrique Mandetta me Nelson Pond) left the government, among other reasons, due to differences over the prescription of the drug. In the Pazuello administration, which began in May, the Ministry of Health radically changed its discourse. The paste began to recommend the use from the first symptoms of covid-19. Bolsonaro himself and First Lady Michelle said they were treated with these drugs.
Also infected, Pazuello participated in a “live” with the president at the end of October and said that he was “zero bullet” after taking the “complete kit” against the disease. At the time, the president even said that this was “another concrete case” where the use of drugs “worked.”
Days later, however, the minister was hospitalized. According to the Status, had to take corticosteroids, anticoagulants, antibiotics and serum. Even cured, the general still feels the effects of the disease, such as fatigue and bodily pain.
Ministry
Wanted since last Monday, the Ministry of Health declined to comment on the existing stock of hydroxychloroquine and the inclusion of the drug in Farmácia Popular.
[ad_2]
