Up to the year 2000 Farmamundi selected and recovered some of the health drugs that were collected from local pharmacies. After a rigorous selection of the health drugs those which where suitable were sent to poor countries and the unfit were destroyed in processing plants approved to preserve the environment.
However, expired medicines increasingly arrived to our storage, containers opened or almost empty and unfit health drugs wherewith over the past few years Farmamundi looked more like a waste disposal site than a Humanitarian Agency. We spent more strength and money in destroying the medicines than to humanitarian shipments, which we had to complete with additional health drugs for specific illnesses of countries in need, as the leftover health drugs were not anti-malaria drugs, anti-tuberculosis medicines, nor complete treatments of antibiotics, vitamins, anti-parasites, etc…
In addition since the year 2000, The Spanish Medicines Agency (AEM) and The World Health Organization (WHO) recommended that health-drugs are not allowed to be delivered as long as they have left pharmaceutical control, since their quality cannot be guaranteed and the export of used medications is no longer allowed. They are summarized in the following message: What is no longer good enough for us, is not good either for them. Accordingly, from the year 2000 Farmamundi applies the legislation strictly and we do not export any leftover medicine. At the same time, we developed a Central Purchasing of Medicines, today known as Logistical Humanitarian Department (ALH), for the cost priced supply of basic health drugs (generics and hospital packaging) including medical supplies, aimed to cooperation and emergency situations. For further information visit ALH on this web page.
Suitable donations and rational use of medicines. The best way to prevent the accumulation of health-drugs at home, it is by making a rational use of them, for both patients and dispenser packaging.