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To extort even the disease/ How Albanians are being robbed with the prices of medicines

2024-03-11 14:00:37 / EKONOMI&SOCIALE ALFA PRESS

To extort even the disease/ How Albanians are being robbed with the prices of

Nurofen for children is a medication used to treat pain, inflammation and fever in children aged 3 months to 9 years.

This herb in Albania is marketed exclusively by the FarmaNet company and currently a box costs 605 ALL.

The same bar in Greece costs 2.33 euros or 240 Lek per box. So 2.5 times cheaper in Greece or 2.5 times more expensive in Albania.

To extort even the disease/ How Albanians are being robbed with the prices of

Legally, medicine prices in Albania are regulated with a defined profit margin. By law, wholesale importers and distributors are allowed an 11 percent profit margin on the CIF price, i.e. the cost of the goods arriving at the port. While minority pharmacies are allowed to add a maximum of 25 percent margin over the purchase price from the majority distributor.
Legally, the difference of 2.5 times in the price of a medicine should not exist. Capital addressed the company FarmaNet, on the reasons why it sells Nurofen 2.5 times more expensive than in Greece, but did not receive an answer.

Theft on an industrial scale

Nurofen is just one of the cases. But there are hundreds of them. Even the abuse is so blatant that even in the domestic market the price differences are double. Journalist Renaldo Saliani published on his Facebook page the case of a medication called Bisolvon.

In one pharmacy, the price of ALL 286 per box was set on the drug tax stamp. While in a pharmacy close to the first one, the price of the same medicine is written as 713 Lek on the stamp. "Which of the two pharmacies cheats patients and the state by forging the stamp?" asks the journalist in his post, where photos of the drug with two prices are attached.

To extort even the disease/ How Albanians are being robbed with the prices of

Another journalist, Mentor Kikia, says that the same prescription prescribed by the doctor in Tirana cost 85 euros, while in Athens the price was 37 euros. "The same cure, the same product and dosage, in Tirana 85 Euros, in Athens I got 37 Euros," denounces Kikia. Numerous evidences like these clearly prove that the drug market in Albania is depraved and most of it has become illegal.

According to official data from INSTAT, Albanians spend an average of 300 million euros per year on medicines. But such price differences prove that more than a functioning market, this is theft on an industrial scale, which not only extorts, but also kills at the same time.

Price differences are only one side of the illegality of the market. The other side is the quality of medications. Many benevolent prescribers often advise patients to buy the drugs overseas if they can. That says a lot.

The extortionist is the government

During their time in opposition, the Socialists coined a term which at the time became widely used in political debate. The term was the disease tax and referred to the value added tax that the former democratic government applied to medicines.

At that time, Mimi Kodheli, Ilir Beqaj, Erjon Braçe and many other socialists labeled the government as heartless to the point that it even taxed the disease, promising that with their coming to power, the VAT on medicines would be removed. And actually it happened.

The government of the Socialist Party removed the VAT on medicines. But Albanian citizens are being extorted even more severely and are already being showered with medicines, the quality of which is questionable.
For the first, drug price control, the legal responsibility falls directly on government agencies under the Ministry of Health. These agencies are the main ones responsible for why Albanians are robbed by paying prices up to 3 times more expensive for medicines.

For the second, what is related to quality, the responsibility is also directly on the government. This government took a number of legal initiatives, which opened the way for the trading of uncontrolled drugs on the market.

Therefore, while the Democrats used to tax the disease for the state coffers, even though in this case the tax also served as a mechanism to control price abuse, the current government is extorting the disease. While it is killing patients by turning the drug market into a stinking swamp of corruption, which has the power to block even the list of drugs./ Kapitali.al

 

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