Strengthening inspection and supervision of drug quality for treating Covid-19 patients

The Drug Administration of Vietnam, Ministry of Health has just sent an urgent document to the Department of Health of provinces and centrally-run cities; the Central Institute for Drug Control, and the Ho Chi Minh City Institute for Drug Control to strengthen drug quality supervision.

According to the Ministry of Health, in the face of the complicated developments of the Covid-19 epidemic, the Ministry is continuing to review and approve drugs and treatment regimens to promptly meet the people's needs for Covid-19 prevention and control. To ensure the safety of users and ensure the adequate supply of quality, safe and effective drugs for medical examination and treatment, the Drug Administration of Vietnam requests the Department of Health of provinces and cities to continue to direct units to strengthen inspection and supervision of drug quality on the market during the Covid-19 epidemic.

Many severe Covid-19 patients have been cured in Nghe An. Photo courtesy of Thanh Chung

The Departments of Health need to focus on directing the Testing and Inspection Centers of the Department of Health to strengthen post-market inspection, sampling, and quality monitoring of drugs used to treat Covid-19 patients at production and distribution facilities and medical examination and treatment facilities in the area.

The Drug Administration also requested the Central Institute for Drug Testing and the Ho Chi Minh City Institute for Drug Testing to develop a plan, increase sampling, and check the quality of drugs circulating on the market, focusing on sampling drugs in the List of antiviral drugs in the market.Covid-19 treatmentincluding drugs containing active ingredients Molnupiravir, Favipiravir, Remdesivir... used in research programs and clinical drug trials in the treatment of Covid-19 according to protocols approved by the Ministry of Health.

Previously, on December 18, the Ministry of Health also informed that it had allocated 300,000 doses of Molnupiravir to localities implementing the Program for controlled use of Molnupiravir for mild F0 cases in the community.

“The mid-term report results of the program in 22 provinces/cities show that the drug is highly safe, well tolerated, and clearly effective in reducing viral load, reducing transmission, reducing severity, and shortening treatment time,” the Ministry said./.