The Egyptian Pharmacists' Syndicate has called for a one-day strike and a week-long boycott of medicines produced by the Holding Company for Pharmaceutical Industries, reports Reem Leila Last Friday's extraordinary general assembly of the Egyptian Pharmacists' Syndicate (EPS) which took place at the EPS's headquarters was attended by 2,000 pharmacists from across Egypt. The meeting was convened in response to a series of police raids on pharmacies during which a number of pharmacists were detained, some taken from their premises in handcuffs. The raids, say the EPS, are intended to intimidate pharmacists so they do not campaign against the government's proposed privatisation of state-owned pharmacies. The four-hour meeting discussed a range of responses to the recent police campaign as well as possible action opposing the planned privatisation. All pharmacies, says EPS Secretary-General Mahmoud Abdel-Maqsoud, have been asked to boycott medicines produced by the Company for Pharmaceutical Industries for a week. Egypt's pharmacies will also close for a day. "The timing of the boycott and strike will be set in the next few days," said Abdel-Maqsoud. EPS board members also intend to send a letter to President Hosni Mubarak complaining about the inspections and requesting that whoever is responsible for the campaign be rebuked. Parliamentarian interpellations directed at the ministers of health and interior regarding the inspection campaigns and the proposed privatisation are also planned. EPS board members vowed to work towards amending Law 100/1993 under which EPS elections have been frozen for 14 years. "The law has turned the syndicate into a meaningless entity. It has to be amended if the EPS is to be in a position to protect the interests of members," says Abdel-Maqsoud. The Egyptian Medical Syndicate (EMS) supports the pharmacists' actions. Hamdy El-Sayed, head of the EMS, points out that under Law 127/1955 the police have no authority to check on pharmacies. "The police can be called only in cases in which inspection teams comprising representatives from the Ministry of Health and the EPS have discovered violations, which they are then legally obliged to report," says El-Sayed. Pharmaceutical companies say they are disappointed with the boycott plans. Ahmed Khattab, chief executive of the Company for Pharmaceutical Industries and an EPS board member, believes that more than 65 per cent of Egypt's pharmacists will comply with the boycott, and that losses to the industry could range from LE500,000 to LE10 million. Drug producers have nothing to do with the arrests of the pharmacists or with the government's privatisation plans, says Khattab: why then, he asks, are they boycotting us. Some pharmacists say they would agree to the government's selling of state-owned pharmacies but only on the condition they are offered to Egyptians and foreigners are prevented from entering the market. Patients requiring drugs for heart conditions and diabetes are potentially at risk from the boycott, though pharmacy owner Ihab Emad says most "pharmacies carry sufficient stock to last at least 10 days." Nearly 30 per cent of shares in the Holding Company for Pharmaceutical Industries have been slated for foreign investors. It is a policy, claims EPS board member Ahmed Ramy, that will affect low-income patients most. "Allowing multinational companies to enter the Egyptian market will lead to an increase in the price of medicine," he says.
