KUALA LUMPUR: The Health Ministry will release its federal medical stockpile to address the shortage of medicines, especially in private clinics, private hospitals and community pharmacies, effective immediately.
Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said medications for common illnesseses such as fever, flu and cough, would be released from government hospitals and health clinics to private health facilities.
"Yesterday, I have directed for the federal medical stockpile to be released and given to private healthcare facilities to overcome the short-term shortage of medicines.
"The stock will be managed by Pharmaniaga," he said after closing the Autism Spectrum Disorder Strategy Transformation and Empowerment Workshop here today.
Khairy said the medicine shortage was due to the unexpected high demand this year for medications to treat fever, flu and cough, as well as due to supply shortages caused by lockdown policies in China and the Russia-Ukraine war.
The ministry, he said, had engaged with medicine manufacturers to boost production.
He assured that the supply of medicines would stabilise by the third quarter of the year.
On June 13, Khairy laid out several measures to tackle the shortage of medicines, which included allowing affected private healthcare facilities to obtain the required medicines from the nearest private or government healthcare facility.
Other solutions included referring patients to the nearest government healthcare facility to continue their treatment.