The national preparation “Pacovirina”, which helped reduce the number of cases of viral hepatitis, hasn’t been produced for almost a year. University Professor Constantin Spinu, who is the vice director of the National Public Health Center, has told IPN that owing to the bureaucratic procedures for obtaining the necessary documents following the death of one of the authors – scientist Pavel Chintea – the medicine stopped to be produced.
“Pacovirina” was created by specialists of the National Public Health Center in concert with scientists of the Genetics Institute of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova, being 100% Moldovan – from the idea to production.
“In 1997-1998, the rate of viral hepatitis was 22.6 cases per 100,000 people, but in 2014 we managed to reduce it to 1.5 cases. The economic impact should also not be neglected. It was established that the state gained not less than 1 billion lei from the production of this preparation. For comparison, a case of chronic hepatitis B or C treated according to European standards costs about €15,000-20,000. With our medicine, a treated case costs approximately 2,400 lei,” said Constantin Spinu.
The preparation was created during about 11 years. As a result of laboratory tests, it started to be produced in 2004. “We want to resume this activity so that the preparation returns to shelves in our drugstores because it is accessible to everyone compared with the imported drugs, whose price is tens of times higher. The medicine can be prescribed to children too,” stated the professor.
The medicine stopped to be produced after the death of Professor Pavel Chintea because the documents need to be renewed, while the difficult and bureaucratic procedures hamper the process. Constantin Spinu voiced hope that the production of the preparation will restart by the end of this year.
