Prices for chronic disease medications will remain unchanged

Havana, December 30 (RHC)-- Cuba is working to protect the vulnerable after the beginning of the monetary reform on January 1.

According to Marino Murillo, head of the Commission for the Implementation and Development of the Guidelines of the Communist Party of Cuba, it will be necessary to fine-tune procedures to subsidize people who need it during the next year, not products.

Speaking this Tuesday on the national television program Mesa Redonda, the official recalled that the State budget for 2021 foresees the allocation of some 30 billion pesos to maintain subsidies for goods and services, especially those destined for children and the sick.

The so-called Ordering Task promoted by the Cuban government implies the unification of current exchange rates, the cessation of the circulation of the convertible peso, and a salaries and prices general reform, with the gradual elimination of subsidies and undue gratuities.

Speaking also in the program, the Minister of Finance and Prices, Meisi Bolaños, said that although prices will rise as a result of the devaluation of the Cuban peso in the business sector, 46 percent of medications will keep their current price, that is, they will continue to be subsidized.

Dr. Emilio Delgado, director of Medicines and Medical Technology of the Ministry of Public Health, said that only 191 drugs of the 353 sold in pharmacies would increase their prices. These are those used for a short time.

However, authorities will protect the products dispensed in a controlled way for three million 425 thousand people with sufferings such as hypertension and diabetes, 23 of these drugs are imported for a value of 22 million dollars.

The monetary reform is one of the most important economic processes in the country's history since it is transversal to all sectors and has a high impact on the population.