This June 17, the Ministry of Health presented a new complaint to the Public Ministry (MP) against officials of the government of Alejandro Giammattei for the purchase of the medication remdesivir, used during the covid-19 pandemic in patients in serious condition.
The allegations point to expediting the registration of a specific brand of the drug to exclude the competition; the acquisition of the product without a technical justification and with overvaluation, which led to an oversupply in hospitals, as well as the presumption of the purchase of counterfeit productwhich represented a risk to the health of Guatemalans.
Mynor Melgar, from the ministry’s Internal Affairs Unit, indicated that this case reveals a “organized structure“that links Ministry of Health workers with suppliers, “to cause economic damage to the State for their own benefit.”
The accusation involves heads of the Department of Regulation and Control of Pharmaceutical Products, the technical vice minister of the Ministry of Health, the professional evaluator of health authorizations, the coordinator of health authorizations, legal representatives of the companies involved, hospital directors and the Minister of Health during the Giammattei government.
This is the second complaint for the same case, since the first was presented in 2024 and was rejected by the MP during the administration of Consuelo Porras.
Melgar indicated that new findings are added to the accusation and that now it is sought that the dismissed status is changed and continue with the investigation.
Timeline
The covid-19 pandemic was declared on March 11, 2020 and ended on May 5, 2023. During the first two years, the Ministry of Health acquired the drug remdesivir, with the commercial name DESREM, from the company AVIVFarmacéutica, which was favored with the streamlining of health registration certificate procedures to be the only one on the market. The purchases amounted to Q69.8 million between August 2020 and June 2021.
According to the Health investigation, in March 2020 the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a list of essential medicines for the treatment of covid-19, and remdesivir was not included. On May 1 of that year, the original drug obtained approval from the FDA and then generic manufacturing was authorized.
Through the Ministerial Agreement 172-2020 The procedures for the approval of medicines produced abroad were made more flexible in Guatemala and remdesivir was included as an essential medicine to care for patients with coronavirus, although it was not on the list of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
With the publication of the regulations, the first application for registration of the medicine under the commercial name was submitted. DESREMpresented by the company AVIVFarmacéutica, a process that the Department of Regulation and Control of Pharmaceutical and Related Products concluded in seven daysa period that Melgar considers short to comply with the corresponding requirements and regulations.
He assured that some processes were authorized in minutes, which suggests that There was collusion between the authorities that issued the resolution and the supplier company to leave it as the only offerer in the market, since for other brands of the medicine the procedures were delayed. This was exposed in the complaint of July 2024 before the Pluripersonal Court of First Instance for Criminal, Narcoactivity and Crimes against the Environment of the department of Guatemala.
When the market opened to other brands, the drugstore The Apothecary joined the sale with the medicine REMDAC and, together with AVIVFarmacéutica, sold to the State Q143 million during the first two years of the pandemic. The vial had an average price of Q2,500.
Other findings
According to Melgar, the research carried out on the drug remdesivir is based on open sources and ministry documentation.
Added to the findings is the presumption that the medications distributed in the country were altered and that the numbers of registration did not match.
“There is a line of inquiry that indicates that a good part of the product that was sold to Guatemala is false,” he indicated, but this point must be verified through studies by the National Institute of Forensic Sciences, at the request of the MP.
On the other hand, it was established that hospitals made purchases in excess of the medication requirements during the pandemic, without a technical justification.
In the case of Cuilapa Hospitalin December 2020 bought 2,500 vials and, by April of this year, it had in stock 2 thousand 128. The same thing happened in Nebaj Hospital, what of 1 thousand 284 jars acquired during the pandemic still had 422 in the first quarter of this year.
The new complaint also documents that the clause requiring suppliers to exchange expired product was not enforced. Are 1,700 vials that remain in the warehouse until the case is resolved.
The Minister of Health, Joaquín Barnoya, indicated that he has high expectations that the MP will investigate the case and that they will continue to file more complaints.
Julio Flores, head of the National Commission against Corruption (CNC), pointed out that with this complaint the Executive has presented 445 cases of corruption and that one in four has been presented by the Ministry of Health.