Ho Chi Minh City is home to many large-scale hospitals with many specialties and many hospitals are the final line of treatment, receiving serious cases transferred from many other localities. Ensuring adequate and timely supply of general treatment drugs, especially specialized and special treatment drugs, is one of the indispensable requirements.
In reality, many emergency cases cannot wait for drug import procedures. Instead, the health system needs to have a ready stock of emergency drugs such as anti-poisoning drugs, emergency drugs, anti-snake venom serums, etc.
Currently, the Ho Chi Minh City health sector has completed the licensing process for importing drugs to meet special treatment needs arising during the examination and treatment process for medical examination and treatment facilities.
Previously, in July 2024, the Government issued Decree No. 84/2024/ND-CP on piloting the decentralization of state management in a number of areas to the Ho Chi Minh City government. According to this decentralization, the city is licensed to import drugs that do not have a circulation license in Vietnam, do not meet treatment needs and fall into one of the following cases: Drugs used for emergency purposes, anti-poisoning; anti-rejection; drugs on the list of rare drugs; drugs included in the guidelines for prevention and treatment of anaphylactic shock; drugs used for specific patients being treated at medical examination and treatment facilities for diagnosis, prevention or treatment of group A infectious diseases, cancer, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other serious diseases.
The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health stated that this decentralization opens up many prospects for the city to increase its initiative in supplying drugs to the local medical examination and treatment system, and solve the difficulty in importing rare drugs and drugs used in emergency cases.
According to Mr. Le Ngoc Danh - Head of the Pharmaceutical Affairs Department of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health, there are two groups of rare drugs. First, drugs for treating rare diseases. Because they are rare diseases, hospitals often do not proactively stock them, and when they stock them, there is a risk that they will have to destroy the drugs if they are not used. The second group of rare drugs is the type that is not available on the Vietnamese market, such as the antidote for Methylene blue (in case of Methemoglobin), diphtheria antitoxin, and snake venom antiserum.
With the new process, Ho Chi Minh City is the only locality in the country that is authorized to grant licenses to import rare drugs, without having to wait for the Ministry of Health to grant licenses as before.
This will help the city avoid shortages of rare drugs in the near future.With the privilege of being granted licenses to import rare drugs, when provinces and cities need to share, Ho Chi Minh City is ready because saving lives is the most important thing.
