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FROM
CUBA
Vitamins are hard to find in Havana pharmacies
HAVANA, April 20 (Ariel Delgado Covarrubias
/ www.cubanet.org) - For the last two months,
two vitamin supplements that used to be
widely available in pharmacies have become
hard to find.
The two, government-produced and marketed
Multivit and Polivit, consisting of vitamins
A, B complex, and folic acid, were introduced
to combat a virtual epidemic of a neuropathy
attributed to poor diet during the hard
times in the last decade.
"For the last two months, shipments
have been very irregular. They arrive in
small quantities and we run out the same
day," said the clerk at one pharmacy.
The story at other pharmacies proved to
be the same.
Patients have to learn their way around
the problem. "The doctor said I had
to take six pills a day," said a 54-year-old
who gave her name only as María Elena
and said she has suffered from the neuropathy
for the last nine. "I get pain in the
joints and bones, so much so that I can't
walk.
The worst of it, one goes to the doctor
to get the prescription and that's only
good for a week when the pharmacy doesn't
have the medicine. So the next week one
has to go back to the doctor to get a fresh
prescription to be ready to pounce the minute
they get the vitamins at the pharmacy, because
they won't have them the next day."
An official at the plant that produces
the vitamins said, after demanding anonymity,
that the laboratory producing them has had
problems with the containers and that other
medicines have received priority because
they are more necessary. "The responsibility
is with the distributors," he said.
Versión
original en español
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