Corcho denies that it is hindering the entry of scarce medicines into Colombia

Carolina Corcho presenting the health reform in the Seventh Commission of the House of Representatives. Photo: Ministry of Health.

On the morning of Sunday, March 19, the Minister of Health, Carolina Corcho, came out to deny the complaints against her that accused her of hindering the entry of medicines that are scarce in the country to boost their production in Colombia.

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Through her Twitter account, Minister Corcho pointed out that she does not buy medicines in Colombia, nor that she has had meetings with pharmaceutical companies.

“I have not held a meeting with any international laboratory that has offered medicines that are in short supply. There is no container waiting for input. The Ministry of Health can be a facilitator, but it is not the buyer of these medicines that corresponds to other agents of the system, “said the head of the Health portfolio.

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Corcho highlighted that about 10 technical meetings have been held to try to find a solution to the shortage of certain medicines that is not a phenomenon only in Colombia, but worldwide and that has been established in the country for four years.

“We have developed more than 10 technical tables to resolve each case in the face of a phenomenon that is global and has been in Colombia for more than four years. Inspection, surveillance, and control bodies were asked to inquire about information from agents, since they do not report to the Ministry of Health,” said the Minister of Health in another tweet, also written that same day.

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Also, Minister Carolina Corcho made a retweet in which the same director of Invima, Francisco Rossi, points out that the issue of medicine shortages should not be politicized.

“Francisco Rossi, director of Invima, reaffirms before Commission VII of the House of Representatives that in order to achieve solutions that address the shortage of medicines, it is essential not to politicize this situation that has been registered since previous years at a global level,” said Invima in a tweet.

Carolina Corcho tweet

Through her Twitter account, Paloma Valencia, a senator from the Democratic Center, denounced that the Minister of Health, Carolina Corcho, would not be letting into the country the medicines that have been indicated by different corporations as “out of supplies.”

“Minister Corcho is rejecting medicines that are in short supply in Colombia in order to give rise to her bad idea of ​​producing state medicines in alliance with the Cuban dictatorship,” Senator Paloma Valencia wrote in a tweet published on the morning of Thursday, March 16. of 2023.

And it is also that the director of the National Institute for Food and Drug Surveillance (Invima), Francisco Rossi, confirmed in a video that the head of the Health portfolio was making it difficult for drugs to enter the country to strengthen the state pharmaceutical industry in Colombia .

“The minister has received a visit from medicine marketers who, with a list in hand, tell us this is out of stock, I will put it in a container in Bogotá in a week at a minimum price; It seems to us that this is the only solution that does not make sense in a country like Colombia that wants to strengthen industrialization and is counting on all the actors to solve this problem”, said director Francisco Rossi.

The director of Invima, Francisco Rossi on medicines in Colombia

Acemi, which is the Colombian Association of Comprehensive Medicine Companies, evidenced that there is a shortage of more than a thousand (1,242 exactly) active ingredients of medicines in the country. The patients who are most affected by this are those who need drugs to control blood pressure, since those, specifically, are the most absent in Colombia. There is talk of products such as Amlodipine, Valsartan or Enalapril, among others.

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