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Pandemic boosts legal medicines in Mozambique
5 April, 2022
Dr. Thebar Miranda said in an interview with Lusa that Covid-19 has had a positive impact on the legal medicines market in Mozambique.
"Covid has had a positive impact on the legal market. It does not mean that the medicines consumption in Mozambique has increased" but "the legal market has absorbed a large part of the illegal market," said the head of the Portuguese pharmaceutical group.
The closure of borders and mobility restrictions caused by the pandemic have affected the smuggling and circulation of counterfeit medicines, while the legal supply chain has remained resilient, Thebar Miranda explained.
"The more developed distribution chains have overcome the informal networks" that are more precarious, said the president of the group, which delivers medicines throughout Mozambique.
The Portuguese group arrived in the country 25 years ago, where it is present through Medis Farmacêutica, which imports, markets, distributes and retails medicines.
As Thebar Miranda told Lusa, the legal market grew by at least a third in 2021, Medis' activity increased by 36% and the uncertainty now is what will happen with the decline of Covid-19 and the return of mobility to normality.
"I think a large part of the market has already learnt where they have security of supply" and can now decide "whether to continue to shop where they had security" during the pandemic, "instead of stocking up at the fair," the official said.
Thebar Miranda looks back and believes that "the pandemic may have helped access to medicines" in the Portuguese-speaking country bordering the Indian Ocean.