Atienza: Why is DOH buying another P1B of remdesivir?
WHY is the Department of Health (DoH) still buying another P1 billion worth of remdesivir when no less than the World Health Organization (WHO) has rejected the drug, which costs up to P8,500 per vial, as additional medication to treat coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) patients?
Deputy Speaker and Buhay Hayaang Yumabong (Buhay) party-list Rep. Lito Atienza raised this question in a statement on Sunday, as he flayed the DoH’s “wasteful double standard of promoting a very expensive investigational drug such as remdesivir, while stonewalling other potential low-priced treatments, including human-grade ivermectin that costs only P35 to P40 per capsule.”
“The WHO recommends against the use of remdesivir because it does not have any positive effect on COVID-19 patient outcomes. And yet, the DOH is still irresponsibly using the drug in addition to standard care for patients,” Atienza said.
“We recommend against administering remdesivir in addition to standard care. There isn’t enough evidence to support to use of remdesivir in hospitalized COVID-19 patients, regardless of disease severity,” the WHO said in its Therapeutics and COVID-19 Living Guideline.
“The DOH should stop importing and using remdesivir. Otherwise, the public will start suspecting that some (department) officials are making money on the purchases,” Atienza said.
“In ditching remdesivir, the WHO is also rightly worried that use of the costly drug might divert and deplete limited public money that may be better spent to prevent the spread of COVID-19 via more aggressive testing, contact tracing and isolation strategies,” Atienza said.
“Other wealthy nations can throw their money away on remdesivir if they want to, but in our case, we simply can’t afford to,” Atienza said.
The DoH earlier said that its Disease Prevention and Control Bureau has earmarked another P1 billion to procure additional stocks of remdesivir that were already running low.
“Remdesivir is currently being used as an additional medication for COVID-19 patients,” the DOH said in a press statement posted on its website.
The drug’s use in addition to standard care for COVID-19 patients became even more evident when Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said he received five vials of remdesivir when he was recently confined at the state-run Philippine General Hospital.
