The Minister of Health announced today a series of urgent measures for millions of Romanians throughout the country, Alexandru Rafila announcing the decision that was taken by the Government to buy 50.000 boxes of Molnupiravir pills, the anti-COVID pill made by the Pfizer company.
The Minister of Health also talks about other changes made for Romanians, especially regarding testing, especially as some people would have used the free testing centers for something other than finding out if they are infected based on existing symptoms.
"Another important news for everyone is that on Monday a quantity of 50.000 boxes of the innovative antiviral medicine, Molnupiravir, will arrive in Romania. We managed to do this. Unfortunately, we did not succeed with Pfizer, they set us some commercial conditions and a typical contract from the United States that is very difficult to adopt in Romania.
I'll give you a single example that I think would create a lot of reservations, first of all, for patients: the creation of a national fund to compensate potential victims of the administration of this treatment. You realize that we have no way to deal with such a matter and it is very difficult to instrumentalize, especially since there are no details related to the size of this fund. That's pretty much the situation.
We'll see you soon, we're in the device. We will expand, this weekend, the sample collection centers, which we started in Bucharest last weekend. We are going to expand them to the level of the whole country, so that patients, on weekends, when they do not have family doctors, can go to hospitals, where samples will be taken.
It is only about symptomatic patients, who register on the platform of the public health departments. Things went well in Bucharest, even if there were certain agglomerations, maybe temporary, or people who wanted to go on vacation and wanted to take their test at DSP.
I understand that everyone wants to go on vacation for free, but it was an abuse that was unfortunately speculated on by some television stations. In Bucharest, we have already reached about 4.000 samples per day, which were collected in these centers, and they will work, starting next week, only on weekends."
