The Ministry of Health signed contracts with three international organizations for the state medicine procurements, the acting minister Ulana Suprun told a press conference in Kyiv on Thursday, 27 July.
Contracts worth 5.9 bn UAH have been signed with organizations that have already participated in public procurement – the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the British procurement agency Crown Agents.
Suprun noted that 98% of medicines, vaccines and medicines have been purchased for the state budget funds in 2016, 57% of which were delivered, and 44% are distributed across the regions.
Suprun said the ministry had to review the previous nomenclatures of purchases: "When we saw the old nomenclatures we saw obsolete drugs and misallocation of funds," she said.
She complained that gathering information about the needs for medicines from the regions was a difficult part of the job.
The Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office found no violations in the procurement of medicines through international organizations.