The shortage is concentrated almost entirely in the products that are dispatched with the control card.
14ymedio, Havana, July 16, 2024 — Officials with Cuba’s Ministry of Public Health recognized on Monday that 70% of the basic medicines that Cuban patients need are missing. Of the 651 products that should be sold in pharmacies, only 292 are available, and only intermittently. The shortage is concentrated almost entirely in products that are shipped with a control card and affects the medicines that are made on the Island, which corresponds to 80% of the basic table. “To say that this situation will be resolved in the coming days would be irresponsible,” admitted the Minister of Health, José Ángel Portal Miranda.
“We have faced, and still have, a situation of significant shortages in the (pharmacy) network,” acknowledged María Cristina Lara Bastanzuri, national director of Medicines and Medical Technologies. The causes they cite are the usual ones: the lack of funding to manufacture new drugs, the increase in the price of raw materials in the foreign market, and the cost of importing them to the Island.
“To say that this situation is going to be resolved in the coming days would be irresponsible,” admitted the Minister of Health
In an analysis prior to the session, Deputy Cristina Luna Morales, president of the Health and Sports Committ
