Mexico City.- Of 300,000 treatments of the antiviral Paxlovid, acquired by health authorities in 2022, at least 138,000 were wasted, first their expiration date was extended and then they were stored away.
This represents an estimated economic loss of 705 million pesos, not counting that between 2022 and 2023 they would have been used to treat some of the 15,000 people who died from Covid-19.
According to an agreement signed between Pfizer and the country’s health authorities, 300,000 Paxlovid treatments were purchased for 1,533 million pesos on July 11, 2022.
But official figures from the Ministry of Health indicate that the supply of Paxlovid treatments was recorded in dribs and drabs between September and December of that year.
“They forgot to distribute them in health units and hospitals. They began to recommend their use until December 2022, when they realized that the first batches were expiring,” revealed sources from the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS).
The expired medicine is currently stored in warehouses at the National Center for Preventive Programs and Disease Control, located in Arenal Tepepan, in Tlalpan.
IMSS sources indicated that the decision not to distribute the treatment in first and second level care units of the Ministry of Health fell to the then Undersecretary Hugo López-Gatell and Ruy López Ridaura, current Undersecretary of Prevention and Health Promotion.
In 2022, Reforma published the dissatisfaction of experts regarding the lack of access to Paxlovid at the first level of care and under the management of primary care physicians, despite the fact that the drug prevents complications in vulnerable patients, as long as it is prescribed early.
At the end of December 2022, the Undersecretariat of Prevention and Health Promotion unexpectedly launched a social media campaign to inform about the existence and access to Paxlovid in public health sector institutions.
Sources at the IMSS confirmed that this agency administered 80 percent of all Paxlovid treatments.
“This shows how the Ministry of Health itself did not distribute the medicine among its own hospitals. Hugo López-Gatell and Ruy López Ridaura literally had it stored away.
“The Ministry of Health did not inform or properly train medical personnel on how it should be applied. It is criminal,” they charged.
On July 10, the Secretary of Health, Jorge Alcocer; Juan Ferrer, current Undersecretary of Health; and Zoé Robledo, director of the IMSS, visited the facilities of this warehouse.
“They went to the warehouses to find out about this, but so far there have been no consequences. They are planning to destroy the medicine because they asked to increase the capacity but the scientific evidence is no longer available,” revealed the sources consulted.
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