The Drug Administration of Vietnam, under the Ministry of Health, said that responsible agencies have withdrawn its registration permission of sub-standard medications including foreign–made kinds to ensure drug quality in the market.
According to the Vietnam Drug Administration, from beginning of September, around 60 drugs have been withdrawn. Deputy Chief of the administration Do Van Dong said that not all of them violated the regulation or were confirmed low quality. 52 of these drugs have been voluntarily withdrawn by its producers.
Producers have withdrawn the registration because they do not want to make drugs any more, said Mr. Dong. As per the present regulation, they can have right to withdraw the registration.
Additionally, the administration decided to remove 6 drugs of Sanofi-Aventis, the French pharmaceutical group including No-spa, Telfast BD, Telfast HD, Amaryl (Glimepirid 1mg), Amaryl (Glimepirid 2mg), Amaryl (Glimepirid 4mg). All of them were patented and manufactured in Sanofi-Aventis in Vietnam.
Through tests, the pharmaceutical administration discovered drugs’ standards made in the country were not fixed with the same kinds made in other countries and had lower quality than what had been registered.
Additionally, the administration removed license of three manufacturers as their product quality is different from what registered. The pharmaceutical controllers have made concerted efforts to reduce substandard medication from 3.45 percent in 2006 to 2.3 percent in 2014. Moreover, the rate of fake drugs has also been reduced from over 7 percent in 1990 to 0.04 percent in 2014 thanks to strong measures carried out by related agencies. According to the World Health Organization, Vietnam is one of the nations having low rate of fake and substandard medicines (below 1 percent fake medications and 3 percent low quality drugs).
