Doctors required to prescribe domestically-produced medicine

The health ministry plans to issue a regulation requiring doctors at hospitals nationwide to prescribe domestically-produced medicine.

Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan instructed the ministry to push measures to promote domestically-produced medicine.

Director of Bach Mai hospital\'s Poison Control Centre said prescribing domestic products would help to limit the use of medicine produced by foreign pharmaceutical companies. The director claims that it is difficult to distinguish between domestic and foreign pharmaceuticals.

Hospital directors will be required to issue lists detailing what pharmaceuticals can be used in their hospitals.

The Ho Chi Minh City Health Department\'s deputy director Pham Khanh Phong Lan said the consumption rate for domestically-produced medicine in hospitals had increased but still accounted for a small portion of prescribed medicine when compared to foreign products.

The deputy director claimed that by using domestic pharmaceuticals drug prices would be stable and cheaper.

There are about 100 pharmaceutical producers in Vietnam that have met the Good Manufacturing Practice\'s standards, according to the ministry\'s Pharmaceutical Management Department.

Vietnamese pharmaceutical companies are able to produce more than half of the country\'s list of essential drugs at one third of the price of imported medicine, said the department\'s director Trinh Quoc Cuong.