Al-Mashat and medicines... Houthi lies on the air / checking information

About 40 years before the Houthi leader Mahdi Al-Mashat spoke and claimed to produce medicines, the Yemeni Company for Pharmaceutical Manufacturing and Trade (YEDCO) in northern Yemen was sending its medicine products to the markets in September 1983, as a national joint-stock company whose production volume grew annually to reach 81 types according to the latest data.

Open company.

About 30 years before Al-Mashat’s allegations about the production of medicines, 4 private sector production companies had begun producing 850 types of medicines. In fact, two of these companies, namely (Saba Pharma and Shafaco), had their products reach the markets of more than 20 Arab and African countries, including United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Sultanate of Oman, Bahrain, Jordan, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Tanzania, Lebanon, Uzbekistan, and some countries of the Horn of Africa.

An information audit report by the Information Audit Unit at NewsYemen revealed the inaccuracy of what was announced by the head of the Supreme Political Council in Sanaa, Houthi leader Mahdi Al-Mashat, on Sunday, September 10, 2023, when he said that Yemen “is currently producing 1,818 types of medicines.” Without clarifying the names of some of these products, and without specifying whether these products belong to private sector companies, or whether they are government companies.

The Medical Journal, in its issue No. 58, dated October 2022, page 10, quoted the Minister of Public Health and Population in the (unrecognized) Sana’a government, Taha Al-Mutawakkil, as claiming that there are about 1,550 types of medicine that he said were manufactured locally, while the head of the Yemeni Federation said For pharmaceutical producers, Ihsan Al-Rabahi, in February 2020, said that 9 local pharmaceutical manufacturing companies produce approximately 1,200 pharmaceutical types.

The Houthi leader, Taha Al-Mutawakkil, claimed at the time that there were 17 drug production factories, which he said were operating with high efficiency, and that they were in the process of revealing the existence of 20 new factories, while the same magazine quoted the Vice President of the Yemeni Union of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and the General Director of the Yemeni Egyptian Company, Nabil Atef. Saying that the number of pharmaceutical industrial facilities they have reached 14, he said that they produce more than 1,570 pharmaceutical types.

According to the documents of the second annual conference for the pharmaceutical industries held in Sanaa during the period 25-26 September 2022 AD, the number of pharmaceutical items produced locally reached 1,600, while the number of factories producing medicine reached 11 factories, in addition to 3 factories under opening and two factories under preparation. And 15 other factories are under construction.

The conflicting information and data indicates the inaccuracy of the inaccurate and misleading information provided by the head of the so-called Supreme Political Council, Mahdi Al-Mashat, when he claimed the production of 1,818 types of medicine without indicating that most of these types are produced by private sector companies, and not as Al-Mashat wanted to market it. As an achievement for his government and his group.

In a related context, the open data of the Yemeni Pharmaceutical Manufacturing and Trade Company (YEDCO) indicates that the company’s first factory was established, as a national joint stock company, in November 1979, and that it owned three factories at that time and 81 pharmaceutical products, all of them from the National List of Essential Medicines.

Among private sector companies, data from Cipla Medica Pharmaceutical Industries, which was established in 2014, indicates that it produces more than 200 types of medicine, including heart, blood pressure, circulatory and nervous system medicines, digestive system medicines, antibiotics, pain relievers, and common medicines.

Likewise, the data of the Freesia Pharmaceutical Industries Company, which was established in 2013, reveals that the company produced 70 pharmaceutical brands, and the International Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Company in 2009 produced 200 pharmaceutical products, including heart, diabetes, antiviral, anti-rheumatic, anti-allergic, and respiratory and urinary tract medications.

In addition, the data of Shafaco Pharmaceutical Industries - established in 1992 - confirms that it is the first national company to be registered centrally in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries and markets its pharmaceutical products in 22 Arab and African countries, as is Saba Pharma, which was founded in 1990 as the first private sector company in the field of pharmaceutical manufacturing. It produces more than 280 medicinal types, and 100 medicinal types are under development, and distributes its products in more than 22 Arab and African countries.

In his comment on the allegations of Houthi leader Mahdi Al-Mashat that they produced 1,818 types of medicine, journalist Abdullah Al-Hadrami believes that “the false projects that Al-Mashat is adopting as an alternative to salaries are just empty scenes for Aladdin, waiting for the genie to be able to turn them into a tangible reality.” . He said on the social networking site (X), “They have their philosophy on this matter, which is that false projects are better than no projects at all.”

المصدر: نيوزيمن