The antigen tests will cost a maximum of 2.94 euros in Spain. It is the price that the Interministerial Commission on Drug Prices (CIPM) has set this Thursday and that will come into force on Saturday, the day after its publication in the BOE, something that will happen tomorrow, as announced by the Minister of Health, Caroline Darias.
To arrive at this figure, the commission has analyzed the sale price of pharmacy distributors, the profit margin that health products usually have, the retail price and that of surrounding countries. “The main objective was to set a price as affordable as possible while maintaining the balance so that the product is available in the pharmaceutical channel”, assured Darias, who has shown confidence that a shortage like that of Christmas will not be repeated.
Spain was in the range of European countries with the most expensive test prices, along the same lines as Italy, Belgium or Ireland, where they are in a range of between 5 and 10 euros. During these Christmases, however, prices exceeded 12 in some places, at a time of shortages in which many pharmacies ran out of them. In Spain, however, they will continue to be sold exclusively in pharmacies.
The price is now closer to that of other countries that allow their sale in supermarkets, as is the case in Germany, where it is difficult to find them for less than 2.9, reports Elena G. Sevillano; the amount drops to 2.1 in Portugal and 1.95 in France (if you buy a box of five, for 9.75 euros).
This decrease is not enough, in the opinion of the General Nursing Council. “In the countries of our very close environment that price is still much lower. We believe that for our population, even due to our gross domestic product, our purchasing power if we compare the salaries in Spain with those in these other countries, that price is still expensive at around almost three and it will continue to make it difficult access for certain people to these types of self-diagnosis tests”, José Luis Cobos, vice president of this organization, has stated in a statement.
The consumer organization Facua has also been against a drop that it describes as “teasing”. “It comes to convey the message that we do not want to end speculation. It is an inflated amount, although less than that of recent weeks. It is practically the same as what we paid before the sixth wave and more than what is paid in other member states of the European Union”, said its spokesman, Rubén Sánchez.
The price drop was announced last Monday by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, on Cadena SER, where he justified that he had not acted before, when the demand was even greater, because he was working to ensure supply. According to the consulting firm Iqvia, between December 13 and 26, 11.2 million tests were sold in Spain, more than half of the 20.4 million sold in the country since the Ministry of Health gave the green light to the sale of these products in pharmacies, last summer.
Although the measure comes late, in the opinion of consumer associations and opposition parties, it has been approved when the peak of the sixth wave has not yet been reached. With health centers completely saturated by the explosion of cases, there are still tens of thousands of citizens infected every day who can resort to this type of test.
Pharmacists have applauded the fact that this product is kept in their circuit despite the fact that, they say, they will have to sell it below cost price. The General Council of Pharmaceutical Associations (CGCOF) and the Federation of Pharmaceutical Distributors (Fedifar) have issued a joint statement in which they recognize that “extraordinary circumstances require extraordinary measures”. “Although the price set will mean that most pharmacies are currently dispensing the tests below the purchase price, pharmacists have always put the health of our patients first,” says Jesús Aguilar, president of the CGCOF.
Antigen tests have good reliability when the concentration of the virus is high and, therefore, the person is more infectious. One of the problems they have is that they do not go through the official channel: if the person who tests positive does not notify the health authorities, they do not appear in the statistics. And, even so, most of the autonomous communities request an official confirmation to accept the diagnosis as good.
This is producing, in all probability, that the real cases of covid are much higher than those shown in the Health reports. Despite this, on Wednesday the record for notifications throughout the pandemic was broken: 179,125.
#Government #limits #price #antigen #tests #euros