Kase denies taking out quality drugs

HEALTH secretary Pascoe Kase has denied that the Health Department had removed the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) quality of drugs and awarded a medicine supply contract to a company.
Kase yesterday issued a statement to “correct information” aired during the recent Public Accounts Committee inquiry into the procurement, supply and distribution of medicine system in the department.
He said he had refrained from making any public statement on the matter “as the inquiry was ongoing”.
“I must now correct some of the misleading and incorrect statements that have been made and are in circulation in the mainstream and social media,” he said.
Kase said the department had a very strict policy “to protect the people from substandard or counterfeit drugs and never circulated low quality or expired medical supplies”.
“Where there are expired medical supplies in health facilities, this could be due to a change in treatment guidelines or stock being slow moving,” he said.
“In these instances, stock management is the responsibility of each facility. The Department of Health requires a minimum of 75 per cent shelf life, which translates to around two years for most medicines. If the department receives anything less than this, then these are sent back to the supplier to be replaced.”
Kase said any low-quality drug detected by pharmacy inspectors would be sent for testing at the Therapeutic Goods Administration in Australia under the Pacific medicine testing programme, or the World Health Organisation-accredited National Institute of Drug Quality Control laboratory in Vietnam.
“If the drug is found to be low-quality, then the company is liable for the full cost of replacement and the distributor is also held responsible.”
He said PNG was the only small Pacific island country to have a drugs testing laboratory.
“We have a medicine quality control laboratory at Gordon to test medicines,” he said.
“This laboratory is supported by the Government with technical support from the World Health Organisation and the Centre for Disease Control in Atlanta, United States of America.
Currently, it is undertaking a survey and testing on commonly used medicines already in circulation in the country.”