Medicines imported from countries such as India, Bangladesh, and China, which require a special permit from the Ministry of Health, are marketed without having undergone physicochemical and bacteriological analyses.
The Supreme Audit Institution, in its report on the effectiveness and safety of medicines circulating in Albania in the period 2020-2023, revealed that hundreds of thousands of packages of medicines were put into circulation without the necessary control by the National Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices (AKBPM). Specifically, for the period under review, 48 types of medicines were imported from countries such as India, China, South Korea, Bangladesh and Singapore through 75 special permits from the Ministry of Health. These included a total of 763,721 packages of medicines and 600,000 doses of vaccines for COVID-19.
These medicines include antiretrovirals for HIV/AIDS, vaccines for polio, COVID-19, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, seasonal influenza, hepatitis B, rabies, and other diseases. They also include medicines to prevent unwanted pregnancies, pediatric antiretrovirals for HIV, and vaccines for diseases such as measles and rotavirus.
The report emphasizes that, although these medicines are imported to meet market needs, it is the responsibility of the competent authorities to ensure their quality through appropriate controls.
The absence of physicochemical and bacteriological analyses for imported medicines doubles the risk to their safety. On the one hand, there is a possibility of imports from countries of dubious reliability, while on the other hand, the lack of controls increases uncertainty about the quality of medicines, thus putting public health at risk.
