CABINET has approved the sum of $700,000,000 for the purchase of essential drugs and other medicine supplies for health facilities in all 10 administrative regions.The Ministry of Public Health has reported that existing stocks are expected to last until the end of this month, and arrangements will be fast-tracked to deal with any emergency situations.

The Guyana Chronicle was told that on January 12, Cabinet was briefed about current stock levels of pharmaceuticals and other medicine supplies in the health sector, and approved funds to buy medication to treat any outbreak of H1N1 viral influenza. The government has approached a single source to provide the medication as a precaution in the event that anyone should be at risk from the viral influenza, which reportedly has affected persons in some neighbouring states. Already 50-year-old Vishnunarine Sugrim, also known as “Shook,” a city businessman, who was initially being monitored in Georgetown for Swine Flu caused by the H1N1 virus, died on Old Year’s Day at the Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, where he had been hospitalised for about two weeks.
He was the owner of the Agri Implements store that sold parts for agricultural machinery in Georgetown. His other brothers own the popular related agri-machinery businesses known as Agri Parts and GuyTrac.

Sugrim’s wife, Geeta, had told this newspaper that her husband had on December 11, returned to Guyana ill from a trip to China. He was taken to the Balwant Singh private city hospital, where a number of tests were done to determine whether he had malaria, typhoid, and even cancer. Public Health Minister Dr George Norton had confirmed that although the patient’s immune system had been compromised, local health officials could not say definitively that he died as a result of the H1N1 virus. It was after the tests from CARPHA were returned that health officials confirmed that Sugrim was positively carrying the H1N1 virus. “

Meanwhile, in approving $700M for fresh supplies, the Guyana Government has opted to implement a fair and open bidding process for all suppliers in the pharmaceutical industry to get an opportunity to secure contracts. Whilst in opposition, both the APNU and AFC, which now form the six-party coalition, had declared that when elected they would have ended the discriminatory practice of sole sourcing of medical supplies.

The Ministry of Public Health has received support from the USAID to develop a new standard for an open, competitive bidding system. A bidding document to this effect was approved by the National Tender Administration Board, following which a pre-bid meeting with all potential bidders was held on December 16 2015. A multi-billion pre-qualification, sole- sourcing contract with the New Guyana Pharmaceutical Corporation (New GPC) ended in October, 2015.