Over 2250 prescription drugs to be sold in Armenia (video)
A new law on medications came into effect in Armenia on December 15. Under the new law, over 4500 drugs will be sold by prescription in Armenia. Talking to reporters on Friday, Sergey Khachatryan, Deputy Minister of Justice, said not only antibiotics but also solutions for injection will be sold with a doctor’s prescription. “If a pill can be bought with or without a prescription, solutions for injection cannot be given without a prescription,” he said. Fines and penalties are foreseen for drugs which are obtained without the required prescription forms. “The prescription is approved by the order of the Minister, then it will become a normative act and be registered in the Ministry of Justice. There will be special medical prescription for narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances and separate prescriptions for free drugs,” he said. The prescription must have the name, address and phone number of the given medical institution, name and other information about the physician, which will help identify the institution and doctor. “A patient should not be obliged to obtain medicine from the same pharmacy. He/she can drop in at any pharmacy and leave a copy of prescription there. The original prescription should be left at the pharmacy where the patient buys the last dose. This will allow us to supervise the process and see whether those were prescription drugs or not. Mr. Khachatryan does not rule out queues and overcrowding at clinics but he is sure that the issue will be regulated in a month or two.
