Today, on August 5, 2015 the Ministry of Health of Ukraine held a press briefing where the selected international organizations to cooperate with the Ministry of Health of Ukraine were announced for public procurements of drugs and vaccines for 2015. These organizations are the organizations of the UN system and British agency “Crown Agents”.

In the nearest future the Ministry of Health plans to transfer procurement function to these organizations within the following state programs: vaccination, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, hepatitis, oncology, hemophilia and children’s nutrition for children with rare diseases. We would like to recall that these organizations have extensive experience in the field of procurement for governments of different countries. Also it will be possible to participate in these tenders for national manufacturers of drugs which confirm the quality of their product.

On behalf of the CF “Patients of Ukraine”, Chairman of the organization Dmytro Sherembey emphasized: “We’d like to thank all partners who have made tremendous efforts to this important step for patients. We are grateful to people’s deputies, who supported the adoption of the historic draft laws #2150 and #2151, and especially – to the Parliamentary Health Care Committee. We express our deep gratitude to international organizations and national partners who during the last six months supported “Patients of Ukraine” on its way to this goal. We hope that in the next few days the Ministry of Health of Ukraine will finalize all the necessary regulations needed for execution of these laws, promptly issue a relevant memorandums and requests for medicines and vaccines to international organizations. The terms of this assistance to Ukraine should be as socially-oriented and transparant as possible.”

We would like to mention, that due to complete failure of government tenders procurement of medicines and vaccines in 2014, public and patient organizations together with professional lawyers  initiated the development and adoption of laws # 2150 and #2151 (269-VIII and 332 -VIII), which allow the Government of Ukraine to conduct procurement of medicines and vaccines through international organizations. The purpose of this initiative: to provide patients of Ukraine in the framework of the state budget of Ukraine with medicines of a high quality during the shortest period of time, overcoming corruption in public procurement: by 40% which corresponds to nearly UAH 2 billion in 2015.

Contact person: Inna Boyko, 050 381 96 00, inna.b@patients.org.ua