DOH: Only 0.03% of COA-reported P7.4-B worth of undistributed medicines actually expired

Facade of the Department of Health office in Manila. INQUIRER.net file photo

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Health (DOH) on Wednesday clarified that only 0.03 percent of the P7.4-billion worth of medicines and other inventory items noted by the Commission on Audit (COA) to be expired and undistributed, have actually reached their expiration dates.

In a statement, the DOH also said that only 1.16 percent of these medicines and inventory items were found to be near expiry.

“On the other hand, 95.81 percent of the cited amount ARE NOT EXPIRED and only pertains to slow-moving/undistributed/overstocked inventories,” said the DOH.

The DOH explained that in the expired medicines, most were stocks in DOH hospitals that were left unused due to the lower number of patients going to hospitals because of COVID-19.

The rest, on the other hand, were stocks in regional offices which were undistributed due to “refusal of implementing units to accept new stocks citing sufficiency of existing stocks.”

The DOH also pointed out that COA only focused on the proper disposal of expired drugs and medicines, not on the expiration itself since hospitals and facilities were able to justify the causes of the expiration.

The department also said that as of September 8, 2023, 86 percent of the slow-moving inventories have already been distributed to centers for health development and other facilities.

“Additionally, the remaining 14 percent of the inventories tagged as slow-moving/undistributed/overstocked are already scheduled to be delivered in Q3 and Q4 of 2023,” it added.

The DOH then assured the public that it continues to come up with and implement new strategies to address issues regarding asset management, as well as supply chain.

It added that Health Secretary Ted Herbosa himself has already directed the creation of an asset management task force to ensure that these issues are addressed and prevented.

To recall, COA in a annual report on Sept. 6, showed that P7.4 billion worth of medicines medicines were classified as ““expired and/or near-expiry, damaged, overstocked, excessive, understocked, slow-moving, undistributed, distributed late and/or accepted below 18 months.”

The report also stated that there were more than two million expired vials of Covid-19 vaccines.

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