OREANDA-NEWS. October 08, 2012. Prime Minister Mykola Azarov visited one of the capital's pharmacy where inquired about prices of basic medicines.

The Prime Minister met with the drugstore sellers and asked buyers: Does prices of essential medicines suit you?

"Are you satisfied, satisfied a price?" Mykola Azarov addressed to the pensioner. She assured that the prices are really reduced, and it is especially pleased that the state took care of hypertensive patients.

12 million people are affected by hypertensive diseases in Ukraine. Since the launch of the pilot project, which involves the introduction of reference prices for medicines for hypertension, sales volume of pharmaceuticals has increased by 13%. This means that after declining prices, a significant number of hypertensive patients began systematically taking drugs firstly.

The Prime Minister noted that he is keeping personal supervision over implementation of the Memorandum between the Government and the manufacturers and sellers of drugs. "The Memorandum, which guarantees low-income people access to medicines of domestic production at fair prices, really works," Mykola Azarov pointed out.

It should be noted that the average price of domestic products, which is included in the National List of essential medicines, since the signing of the memorandum fell by 17% and foreign ones - by 1%. The share of domestic drugs on market has increased by three percentage points. As a result, average prices for drugs included in the National List fell by 18.2%. Prime Minister noticed this reflects the growing confidence of patients to domestic drugs.

Mykola Azarov also inquired about the opinion of pharmacy staff concerning expediency of introducing of selling medicines containing codeine only by prescription in retail establishments. He recalled the Ministry of Health is going to tighten control over the sale of these drugs to citizens, in particular, to sell them for recipes. The pharmacy staff noted that fully support such steps as selling drugs containing codeine is currently a very serious problem and strengthen controls will solve it.

In addition, Ukraine has brought into conformity with European legislation of standards for admission of medicinal products foreign production in its home market. On March 1, 2013 importation of drugs into Ukraine is possible if only provided by the quality certificate issued in Ukraine. As a result, more than 2 thousand drugs foreign production will not be allowed in the Ukrainian market.

It's worth mention that during 2010-2011, for the first time, the state has allocated funds to additional equip 10 of 27 laboratories of the State Medical Service, and today they are fully compliant with WHO.