Since the outbreak of Covid-19, the revival of the local pharmaceutical industry has been brought up to date. Despite the absence of budgeting at the Msas level, which causes delays in the implementation of the project, the State wants to build sovereignty in this area. By Alioune Badara CISS –
Supply disruptions in medicines and other health products had pushed the government of Senegal to decide to implement a recovery plan for the pharmaceutical industry in order to secure the supply chain and ensure sovereignty in this area. sector. Since the establishment of this Management Unit for the pharmaceutical industry recovery project in March 2022 by the Minister of Health and Social Action, this Coordination Unit, commonly called Delivery Unit (Du) of the Protection Plan revival of the pharmaceutical industry, struggling to take off due to lack of inclusion in the budgetary programming of the Ministry of Health and Social Action (Msas).
This lack of budgeting at the Msas level causes delays in the implementation of the project and the achievement of pharmaceutical production and sovereignty objectives. Despite strong support from technical and financial partners through budgetary support to the State of Senegal, the project manages to capture very few resources which are redirected towards other public initiatives or towards other structures.
To relaunch this unit, the Ministry of the Economy, Planning and Cooperation (Mepc), as part of its economic planning missions through the General Directorate of Planning and Economic Policies (Dgppe), has committed to supporting the Msas through the Du in the maturation and evaluation of the recovery plan, before its inclusion in the programming. This is why, during the opening of the maturation workshop of the Project to revive the local pharmaceutical industry, Serigne Mbaye, Cabinet Director of Msas, magnified the holding of this meeting which today makes it possible to finalize a process that began several years ago. “As part of the revival of the local pharmaceutical industry to provide the health system with quality medicines and also promote the emergence of energies at the local level and boost production at the local level, there has been work which has was done, which made it possible to set up a Project Management Unit which was to catalyze reflections and energies, allow all sectors to come together, that energy be there, the tax authorities, industry, health, In any case that all ideas can be put together to be able to give the chance to this revival of the pharmaceutical industry,” rejoiced Mr. Mbaye. However, Serigne Mbaye recognizes that steps have been taken, because the government has carried out reforms by updating, in 2023, the pharmacy law which dated from 1954. It has issued implementing decrees, an order also , to set up a correlation system which makes it possible to favor, when possible, industries at the national level. Despite all these efforts, he maintains that this recovery project must be further structured: “And this is why, with the support of the Ministry of the Economy, Planning and Cooperation of which it is one of the missions, we are there to be able to bring the project to fruition, to allow it to be included in the budget, and also to allow everything necessary to be there for this project to play its role.”
Recalling that pharmaceutical sovereignty is at the heart of the policies of the President of the Republic, this is why this workshop will look at the factors blocking this recovery which are, among others, the lack of budgetary inclusion of this recovery project, the slow rise in power of the staff of this structure responsible for carrying out this recovery and in all sectors which could be the key sectors on which this recovery must be built. “There are still steps to be taken, which is why this workshop will offer a platform to truly highlight what is missing: it is regulations, these are also the conditions to be put together, we need a dynamic industry, we need the conditions that favor the implementation of industries, and regulation and organization are necessary. And for all that, we also need the sinews of war, the means, the resources which truly make it possible to guarantee the financing of the actions. But after maturation, the objective, one of the targeted actions, is inclusion in the budget, but also the ability to mobilize the resources of partners and other resources to enable this recovery to be a reality. , hoped Mr. Mbaye.
Senegal must now revive the industry pharmaceutical, it imports 95% of medicines and only produces 5%, hence the urgency of redoubled efforts to enable Senegal to recover.
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