According to Health Minister Alexandru Rafila, quoted by news.ro, 215,616 Romanians took potassium iodide tablets at the pharmacy in July and August. Last month, 376,892 potassium iodide tablets were distributed, compared with 2,175 in July, and that 214,385 people received them, compared with only 1,231 in July. Approximately 7 million Romanians must contact pharmacies on the official list of the Ministry of Health to collect them.

The Minister of Health hopes that in the near future more people will go to pick them up, for example when they go to their family doctor for other health problems.

• “You know very well that this iodine distribution campaign started out more difficult, and in July we had only 1,200 people willing to take potassium iodide tablets. However, things changed for the better in August, over 200,000 people took their iodine pills, I hope this continues as people under 40 come to their GPs with other problems, not necessarily this one, they can also ask for a prescription for potassium iodide.
• It is a rational preventive measure that we use to protect ourselves, because no one says that there will be a nuclear incident, but if it does happen, even if it is less likely, it is good to have these pills on hand, which are used only in official announcements, in very a reasonable amount, usually for children, young children, half a tablet or one tablet, and for adults two tablets, but this has been presented several times in campaigns that I have done on TV and radio. stations,” explained Rafila.

About 7 million Romanians have to go to pharmacies on the official list of the Ministry of Health to get potassium iodide tablets with a medical prescription from their family doctor.

• “7 million people could get these iodine tablets, of course 200 thousand seems a little bit, but still an increase from over a thousand to over 200 thousand people in a month, I think is a good development and we continue to encourage the world to get from the benefit of this is a program run through the Ministry of Health, in a network of more than 2,500 pharmacies that are available to the public, of course with a prescription from a family doctor, it’s a common thing, natural if you like, because potassium iodide is a prescription-only medicines,” said the Minister of Health.

In many rural areas of Romania, either there is no family doctor (this happens in more than 400 settlements), or there is no pharmacy that is on the official list of the Ministry of Health. The minister says that he is discussing with the responsible persons the possibility of mobile pharmacies in these territories.

• “Here is the problem that exists, access to different medicines for the population in less accessible areas, we are trying to find a solution to stimulate the opening of pharmacies or pharmaceutical points, including in such areas, this is a debate that for many years in Romania we have not found a solution overnight, and of course we can’t do anything except to encourage somehow, so there is a certain policy to encourage the opening of pharmacies in rural areas, unfortunately, for reasons from the point of view of nature, this thing is not very interesting, we continue the discussion with the distribution ‘jutors to see if we can come up with a solution.

• Including, we can talk about the possibility of having some mobile pharmacies that can periodically reach these less accessible places. We discussed various distribution options.

• In disadvantaged regions, this is a very serious problem, particularly when we discuss some diseases for which patients have to periodically pick up their products from a certain pharmacy, it is good to try to bring pharmaceutical products closer to patients and not have patients travel long distances, but I repeat that it’s a process, it’s not an issue that can be resolved in 24 hours,” said Health Minister Alexandru Rafila.

Millions of iodine tablets are still waiting to be picked up for free by Romanians under 40 from some 2,500 pharmacies across the country, which the health minister said in August “the world is not very interested in”.

This spring, the National State Reserve Authority purchased 30 million tablets of potassium iodide worth 6 million euros. Potassium iodide tablets were produced by Antibiotice Iași.

Read also:

• Why does Rafila urge “everyone” to pick up iodine tablets at the pharmacy. The resounding failure of his big project as Minister of Health

• Rafila about iodine tablets: The world was not very interested. Tablets can be found in 2,500 pharmacies across the country

• Family doctors: Prescription for iodine tablets cannot be written online, presence in the office is required. It may take several days or weeks to make an appointment