Government target is to produce 70% of SUS inputs in the country

The Ministry of Health announced, this Monday (3), the restructuring of the Executive Group of the Economic-Industrial Health Complex (Geceis), which aims to stimulate the production system of goods and services related to health, such as medicines, vaccines and hospital equipment. The federal government’s goal, according to the Minister of Health, Nísia Trindade, is to produce 70% of the needs of the Unified Health System (SUS) in the country in up to ten years. “Our goal is to reach 70% of national production of the necessary inputs for our health. For this we will need innovation, in addition to strengthening the field of regulation. This will be done in a vision turned not only to the country, but to our role in the region and in cooperation for effective global health”, he declared. According to the minister, the perspective is that in 30 days each of the participants of the executive group will identify and present proposals to stimulate the sector. “Whether through notices or regulations that facilitate, for example, technological orders and other measures that may favor production, innovation and reindustrialization in the field of health.” The announcement was made at a ceremony attended by the Vice President of the Republic, Geraldo Alckmin, and the Minister of Institutional Relations, Alexandre Padilha, in addition to Minister Nísia Trindade. In the government’s assessment, dependence on Brazil for the acquisition of inputs makes the public health system vulnerable to the foreign market, susceptible to fluctuations in the world economy. Vice-president Geraldo Alckmin stated that the time is ripe for re-industrialization, but he stressed that it is first necessary to identify the causes of de-industrialization. Quoting Ambassador Rubens Ricupero, he said that despite the pandemic, globalization continues at full speed, but there is a new principle: that of precaution. “I cannot depend on everything from abroad. I cannot depend on fertilizer from Canada or Norway; on molecules from India; on equipment from China”, exemplified Alckmin, who is also Minister of Development, Industry, Trade and Services. reinforced the importance of federal universities, the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) and Butantan. Simultaneously to the event, the President of the Republic, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, signed the decree creating the Executive Group of the Health Economic-Industrial Complex (Geceis). Health Economic-Industrial Complex Created in 2008, during President Lula’s second term, the collegiate was extinguished during the administration of Jair Bolsonaro. The economic complex brings together the chemical and biotechnology-based industrial sectors (drugs, medicines, immunobiologicals, vaccines, blood products and reagents) and the mechanical, electronics and material sectors (mechanical and electronic equipment, prostheses, orthoses and materials). With the restructuring of Geceis, the Ministry of Health intends to deepen studies in sensitive industrial areas to increase the national production of medicines, pharmaceutical inputs and equipment, in addition to reducing the country’s dependence on imported products and vulnerability to the foreign market.

Agência Brasil