The Tamiflu scandal findings are reliable because it relies on legal documents, said an official of the government inspection at annual press conference on Oct. 5 in Hanoi.
Nguyen Van San, deputy inspection chief said the Prime Minister would decide punishment for involved individuals and relevant agencies and companies.
Government inspectors have discovered two chief wrongdoings concerning to accusation that the Ministry of Health and domestic drug manufacturers of massive waste, said Vu Hong Khanh from the government inspection.
Firstly, the Ministry of Health had slow reaction to the epidemic, failed to properly oversee a costly and arguably unnecessary stockpile of anti-viral medicine; it must hence assume the responsibility for the mistake, Khanh concluded.
Secondly, inspectors discovered financial matters related to the plan since more medications were reserved than it should.
Accordingly, the government had to spend hundreds of billions of dong in maintaining a reserve of antiviral drugs to fight the bird flu epidemic in 2005-2006. The Drug Administration of Vietnam ought to take responsibility.
According to government inspectors, only 91 cases of influenza A (H5N1) were recorded between 2003 and 2005. Despite this number, in November, 2005, the ministry proposed the reservation of 30 million capsules of Oseltamivir (aka Tamiflu).
Because the reserve was sufficient for three million people, the proposal was deemed excessive, considering Vietnam’s recorded number of cases, the inspector said. The purchasing price far exceeded the demand up to VND27.561 billion.
Government inspectors have therefore petitioned the government to ask four pharmaceutical companies-namely Phu Yen Medical Equipment and Pharmaceutical (Pymepharco), Cuu Long Pharmaceutical Joint Stock Corporation (Pharimexco), Imexpharm Pharmaceutical Joint Stock Company, and Stada Vietnam Company that the ministry ordered the capsules to return the $2.267 billion to the state budget.
Also at the conference, Mr. Khanh said government inspectors discovered lax control in using social insurance fund and medical insurance especially in bidding medications in state-run hospitals. Last year inspection revealed wrong bidding of drug of insurance companies and in seven provinces.
Moreover, recent inspection showed wrong incomings and outgoings of insurance fund. Inspectors promised to announce inspection result in next November.
