DOHA: A GCC pricing committee has fixed the import prices of 4,263 medicines as part of a unified procurement plan.
Of these, prices of 2,704 medicines have been approved by the GCC states, a meeting of the GCC health ministers in Riyadh last week was told.
The prices have been fixed based on the lowest available in the member countries.
Several GCC states, including Qatar, are reducing the prices of many medicines following the decision.
As part of the unified procurement plan, the GCC states issued 16 tenders in 2014 in which 22 government agencies and 657 companies participated. In 2013, the pricing committee completed a study on 14 pharmaceutical groups.
This was disclosed by Kuwaiti Minister of Health and Chairman of the 39th session of the GCC Health Ministers Council, Dr Ali bin Saad Al Obaidi, at the meeting.
“During the committee’s meetings, 4,263 medicines of different concentrations and packages were priced,” Dr Al Obaidi said, adding the medicines whose prices were approved totalled 2,704.
Dr Tawfik Khoja, Director-General, Executive Board, GCC Health Ministers’ Council, said member states were able to significantly reduce the spread of diseases after the introduction of early screening of foreign workers in their country of origin.
“The proportion of unhealthy expatriates has declined from 30 percent to less than five percent. We are looking forward to a further decline notwithstanding the fact that the percentage is the lowest worldwide,” said Dr Khoja. Speaking to Asharq Al Awsat daily after the meeting, he said the GCC is in the final stages of completing the smart card system and implementing a joint mechanism for healthcare. He said the bloc is awaiting formal confirmation of the shared venture from the health minister of every member state. Dr Khoja, re-elected as Director-General, Executive Board, GCC Health Ministers Council for another three-year term, said the GCC could seek to launch a small-scale pilot project before introducing the system across the region.
The two-day GCC health ministers’ conference also recommended the approval of health projects, including a 10-year project to fight non-communicable diseases and measures to adopt World Health Organisation (WHO) standards for healthcare and efficiency and a programme seeking to curb smoking among GCC citizens.
The Peninsula
