Andrew Kathindi
Namibian pharmacies have accused South Africa of hoarding essential medicines, a move which has negatively impacted their availability to Namibian patients.
On 27 March, following the declaration of the state of national disaster by President Cyril Ramaphosa, South African Minister of Trade and industry, Ebrahim Patel introduced new export control measures on essential goods such as alcohol-based hand sanitizers, face-masks, gas masks, other breathing appliances, hydroxychloroquine, antisera and other blood fractions, vaccines for human medicine and medicaments.
“I understand why the decision was made; it was to ensure that they don’t run short. And if we were talking about medicine that South Africa produces and doesn’t want to export then it wouldn’t be so bad. But much of this medicine is produced oversees and is only in South Africa as a result of the country being multinational import/export hub in Southern Africa. It’s just in transit, so South Africa is abusing their privilege,” Vice-President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Namibia (PSN), Uli Ritter told Windhoek Observer.
He said the slow supply of the medicine, which now take up to 5-7 weeks to arrive in the country from 3-5 working days previously, has seen a shortage and complete lack of certain critical medicines in the country.
“It’s unethical and endangering Namibian lives,” said Ritter, adding that the biggest shortage has been anti-epileptic medicine as well as hormonal medicine for cancer patients.
He said while the pharmacies have approached the Namibian government to engage the South African government as the two countries share close economic ties, there has not been a lot of movement in getting the medicines to Namibia faster.
“The medicine is coming in bits and pieces which makes management virtually impossible. It’s a pity to be part of the South African Customs Union (SACU) and still be crippled like this. Just yesterday a new COVID-19 law lifted the restrictions on the export of crucial medicines but they still get blocked at the border by customs,” he said, adding that the organization had also approached entities such as the World Health Organization (WHO) to exert their influence without positive results.
He lamented the bureaucratic process that requires South African medical suppliers to apply for permits to export medicine. This bureaucratic step extends the delay in receiving the goods by weeks.
Chief Pharmacist at the Central Medical Store in the Ministry of Health and Social Survives, Seija Nakamhela said the global production of medicines had slowed down as early as December as the raw materials for those manufactured in Asia was restricted because of COVID-19.
“In March and April, the stock was really low. From May towards the end of May, most countries started opening up, and the logistics opened up again. So, that already affected everything but as we speak now there’s a lot of improvement, now you can really tell that our receiving Bay is active,” said the Ministry’s Chief Pharmacist.
She added, “So, we are very hopeful that things will improve, not drastically, but in June and July we are expecting a lot. There are still challenges, the prices are still fluctuating but we appreciate the fact that the exchange rate is going down a bit. That will help us a lot because the price increase and the fluctuations affect the price we buy it for.”
