Anti-flu Has Highest Price Hike In 22 Years

Anti-flu prices rose by the most in 22 years, with reports of a severe winter and drug shortages. Of the 14 types of drugs monitored by Inegi, anti-flu reported the most severe shortages across the national region, with its average price increasing by 11.2% during the first two weeks of the year.
According to the institution headed by Graciela Marquez, this is the biggest increase since the first half of August 2000, when they increased by 11.2%. This was followed by anti-inflammatories, which cost 10.2% more than at the start of 2022 and was the biggest increase in six years, while expectorants and decongestants grew by 10.1%.
Buying contraceptives and hormones required spending 9.7% more money than a year earlier, while pain relievers rose 8.9%. Two weeks ago, Roberto Galan Alemán, president of Canacintra Medical Sector, expressed his concern about the inflationary process and the government’s measures to increase wages and holidays, as it affects production costs.
The organization’s partners, mostly small and medium-sized companies, “depend on sales to public institutions and it has been a pilgrimage to get paid on time and offer very limited prices,” he told this newspaper. Arturo Manríquez Martínez, general director of the National Association of Distributors and Laboratories of Generic Medicines (Dilameg), acknowledged that generic drugs have been impacted by the high cost of raw materials such as plastic and aluminum for packaging.
Faced with complaints by civil society organisations, legislators and citizens about shortfalls in public health systems, President Andres Manuel López Obrador assured that his government had secured essential medicines by 2024. We have received medicines for this year and for 2024, it was a complex problem and with many interests, heavily influenced by corruption, we have already resolved it,” he announced on 19 January.