By Matias A. Loewy

BUENOS AIRES, Feb 04 (Reuters Health) - In the middle of an unprecedented crisis in the healthcare system, Argentina's new Minister of Health has announced a plan designed to assure the availability of 68 essential drugs to almost 6 million poor people.

According to Dr. Gines Gonzalez Garcia, 1 million families are expected to give 3.5 pesos monthly (around US$2) out of the government's subsidy of 150 pesos destined to those people who live in extreme poverty.

The income collected is going to feed a "medication fund." Provided that they have a medical prescription, members of eligible families should be able to access freely any of 68 essential drugs listed by the government, including antibiotics, antihypertensives and even some vitamins.

"This is the first time that a national program is aimed at assuring access to medication for poor outpatients," Gonzalez Garcia told Reuters Health. Prescribed drugs will be available from the 11,000 pharmacies throughout the country.

Per capita consumption of medicines in Argentina is the largest in Latin America and similar to that in countries such as the UK and Sweden. Its $5.6 million pharmaceutical market has been considered to rank among the top 12 markets in the world.

But while a small proportion of Argentinians have a "passionate relationship" with medication, as Gonzalez Garcia once pointed out, more than one third of the population doesn't have any kind of coverage for pharmaceutical expenditures. Most of these people live below the poverty line.

"The (new) plan is a valuable step forward, but you also have to assure the access to primary care doctors and a good follow-up of the medication use process," Dr. Jose Maria Paganini, director of the University Center for Health of the National University of La Plata, in the province of Buenos Aires, told Reuters Health. Paganini is also a member of the executive board of the International Society for Equity in Health.

Medication insurance coverage for the poorest Argentinians is scheduled to start within the next 15 days, Gonzalez Garcia announced.

Meanwhile, welfare, union-run and private medical insurance affiliates are having difficulty with access to some vital medicines, such as insulin, and thousands of vials of the hormone are being donated by Brazil, Spain, Venezuela and local pharmaceutical companies.

"Nowadays, we have enough doses to cover 2 months of treatment for the 300,000 Argentine type 1 diabetics, but I don't know what is going to happen later," Nestor Loreto, president of an association of diabetes patients (Adiba), told Reuters Health.

Around 1,700 hemophilics, 3,500 transplant patients and 21,000 HIV-positive persons are also at risk, though Gonzalez Garcia promises to maintain or regularize promptly the normal supply of drugs for these critical patients. "It is our number-one priority," he said.

Last week, Argentina-based pharmaceutical companies donated 2 million units of drugs to public hospitals.

The main root of the crisis is considered to be the critical situation of the social welfare system for the retired and the disabled. PAMI, Argentina's health insurance service for the aged and the disabled, owes its suppliers about 1,800 million pesos (about US$1 billion).

PAMI covers more than 4 million people and much of the country's private and public health system depends on it. Gonzalez Garcia expects to inject at least 100 million pesos into it to restore partially the chain of payment between clinics, hospitals, pharmacies, healthcare providers, wholesalers and laboratories.

From Reutershealth.com