The current legal framework does not enable the Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices to manage solid waste, including pharmaceutical one. The drafting of regulations concerning the incineration and co-incineration of waste is being discussed. The details were provided following an inquiry made by IPN given that the former administration of the Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices at the end of last November said that the collection of drugs from people for destroying them would become possible in all the drugstores of the country in several months.
In the response to IPN, the Agency says the management of solid waste is the prerogative of private business entities. When the legal framework is finalized, economic operators will be authorized to collect, transport and eliminate medical waste by incineration/co-incineration. This is a long-lasting process, especially the stage of preparing, drafting and implementing the legislation. Approaches will be made in concert with the Ministry of Health, Labor and Social Protection. “In the absence of the legal framework, the Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices cannot initiate the procedure for collecting and destroying medicines and defective medical devices,” runs the response.
At the end of last November, the former administration of the Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices announced that in several months the national drugstores would start to collect expired medicines from people for these to be destroyed. In villages, where there are few drugstores, collection points were to be set up in health centers of family doctor’s offices. The expired drugs were to be destroyed at a cement factory.
