Ochieng Mohamed. How did pensioners lose an effective joint-restoring drug because of the officials? Why were the interests of the pharmacy lobby put above people's health?

This program is about how people with bad joints are mutilated, because they never know the truth. It is also about the drug from the National Research Institute of Rheumatology, which can save millions of lives.

Why are people deprived from a medicine that is distributed essentially for 4900 KES*? Who is to blame for it? Let’s find it out.

Why do pharmacies offer outdated and dangerous medicines, while hiding from people the truth about the new drug from the National Research Institute of Rheumatology. Who covers the gray schemes of the pharmaceutical market, profiting from the pensioners’ ruined health? How comes the pharmacy mafia makes hundreds of millions on people's health, making them even more ill?

Today in the studio we are welcoming a leading specialist of the Rheumatology Research Institute, a representative of pharmacy chains, the chief rheumatologist, broadcast straight from the USA – Akinyi Wawira.

Former head of International Health Organization, Akinyi Wawira.

Ochieng Mohamed:" Akinyi, which measures were taken to provide the citizens with necessary medicines?"

Akinyi Wawira: We did everything that was necessary to help the people. At the expense of the budget, large quantities of medicines were purchased and further distributed according to the due benefits, manufacturers were subsidized, both in the country and abroad. Pharmacy chains were paid huge sums as compensation for medicines that were bought from them by preferential prescriptions. In my opinion, we did even more than it was required.

Caroline Omar, a leading specialist at the Research Institute of Rheumatology.

Caroline Omar: Could I ask you a question? And what kind of medicines were there and what kind of companies were they? We once looked at the list of medicines that International Health Organization officials paid for. There are only some old medicines that were relevant in the last century. How can they help sick people? Especially, pensioners, who received them mainly via their benefits. A really huge amount of money was spent indeed, rather on private companies and certain people’s benefit, and not on those people who needed! Nothing that needed to be done to actually help ill people was actually done.

Ochieng Mohamed:" Let's try to figure out the details. Caroline, what specific questions would you like to ask Mrs. Suprun?"

Caroline Omar : Okay, let's go through the points.

1. Why were huge amounts of money spent on medicines which efficacy wasn’t even proven? Spent on the old drugs that are hopelessly outdated. Why did the state pay the bills of private companies that fed our pensioners with God knows what? This money could be spent reasonably, not just wasted.

2. Why was the National Online Pharmacy project openly sabotaged and literally trampled into the mud? Perhaps for the reason that everything could be transparent there and it could be possible to assess the effectiveness of drug costs by the improvement sick people would demonstrate?

3. Why were breakthrough developments not just pushed into the corner of something unneeded, but also tightly sealed there? We do have medicines that really help people but no one in the International Health Organization remembered about them.

Akinyi Wawira: You know, I'm not going to talk in that raised tone. First of all, it was teamwork, so you shouldn’t blame me only. Secondly, there are no legal claims to any contract for the medicines purchase. Thirdly, here you are talking about a National online pharmacy. And who would use it, tell me? Can you imagine a pensioner ordering something online? This is complete nonsense. And you can check the effectiveness of the allocated funds following our statistics, collected throughout the country.

Caroline Omar : You were the leader of the process and you had the authority. Who else should I ask such questions if not you? It is convenient to evaluate the effectiveness of huge expenses according to your own statistics. You can adjust it yourself, however convenient it is for you. Paper reports are always easy to compose, but real work is way harder. Especially if the work is honest. As for the contracts, it's just ridiculous. For example, in our country, hundreds of thousands of people die from joint and blood cancer every year. Hundreds of thousands more become disabled. And what did you order for the treatment of joints under your contracts? Chondro-protectors, which are now prescribed only in the countries of Equatorial Africa. The prices for these medicines are such that manufacturers certainly got rich with such state supply contracts.

Akinyi Wawira: If some decisions were made, then there were grounds for them. I didn't expect we would communicate here in this way. And I see absolutely no point in continuing the discussion.

Ochieng Mohamed:" Akinyi Wawira disconnected which is a pity, the dialogue was getting more interesting."

Caroline Omar : She just avoided answering, as expected. Hundreds of old medicines, some of which are even harmful to people, have been subsidized by the International Heal Organization for several years while new developments or foreign drugs that could somehow help people did not enter our market. There is no need to think twice to understand the reason. I am not so deep into other areas of medicine, but I know for sure that everything is extremely bad with the treatment of joints here. Every year the country loses hundreds of thousands of people. But the International Health Organization preferred to turn a blind eye to this.

Ochieng Mohamed:" Caroline, could you evaluate the situation with the joints’ diseases?"

Lyudmila Antonova: Many medical authorities, such as Mrs. Suprun, apparently, believe that joint diseases are not a very dangerous type of disease, which disturbs only with its crunching sound of hands and feet and pain. This is a fundamentally wrong opinion. Joint diseases are extremely dangerous and even at an early stage of development can kill a person or turn him/her into an invalid.

First of all, any joint disease is a precancerous disease. Even at an early stage, arthrosis or arthritis can lead to a cancerous tumor formation. Most often it is bone marrow cancer or blood cancer. Both are extremely difficult to cure and fatal. This is a complication, perhaps the most underestimated in its danger, that occurs in people with diseased joints.

Secondly, joint diseases often lead to disability. A hand that has suddenly stopped working, a leg that has failed, or complete paralysis are very common complications that occur in many patients. Paralysis essentially condemns the patient to exist as a conscious vegetable which is not much different from death.

Thirdly, banal osteochondrosis can "close " the nerve endings in the spine and cause complications of any internal organ — from the liver to the heart. The spinal cord is the basis of the central nervous system. With its violations, there are failures in internal organs’ work that can lead to a variety of complications. Osteoarthritis, also known as arthrosis, often leads to sepsis and blood poisoning.

Ochieng Mohamed:Do you mean to say that everyone who has joint pain is taking a mortal risk?

Caroline Omar : Specialists consider joint diseases to be among the most dangerous ones. Unlike many other diseases that occur in humans, they do not lead to some temporary health problems, but develop only incrementally, gradually leading the sick person to the grave. Joint diseases are the cause of millions of painful deaths. It's like a time bomb that won't necessarily go off right away, but with a 100% chance of exploding sooner or later. In addition, the situation with joint cancer is such that at the first stage the patient cannot distinguish the pain caused by the cancerous tumor from the usual disease symptoms. The patient realizes the problem when the metastases have already gone through the body and are already too late to treat.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of people die from bone marrow and blood cancers caused by joint diseases. Each of them suffers terribly. Patients over 40 years of age are in a special risk zone. The worst thing is that until recently there was no effective way to prevent the onset of cancer. If a person had a joint disease in the middle or severe stage, then the maximum that medicine could offer him was medications that relieve symptoms. Nothing better than that.

Ochieng Mohamed:"What are the main modern joint diseases treatment methods?"

Caroline Omar : In most cases, patients are offered treatment with chondro-protectors and other drugs, which, with the best result, can slow down the development of a particular disease, nothing more. In some cases, people are treated with injections or via surgery. The first option (chondro-protectors and other pills) is basically useless. The second and third are extremely dangerous. Injections can only remove pain, not affecting the disease itself in any way. As a result, the patient does not feel pain and believes that everything is fine with him/her, whereas a cancerous tumour can already be growing in the body. And joint surgery in general very often ends in disability or other severe complications. Surgery should be recommended in the most extreme cases only.

Precisely because of the low effectiveness of the classical approach to treatment, the specialists’ minds have always been occupied with the development of a drug that allows them to really treat diseased joints and reward people with health. At the National Research Institute of Rheumatology, we have created a first-of-its-kind medicine that can really restore joints but we still can't deliver that on the pharmacies’ shelves.

Ochieng Mohamed:"Could you tell us about it?"

Caroline Omar: Sure. It is "Maxiflex", a unique drug that has no analogues abroad yet. In its form, these are capsules that are created on the basis of unique natural ingredients. No other medicine uses a similar formula.

At the moment "Maxiflex" has passed clinical trials and shown extremely high performance indicators. It helps even in advanced and severe cases, restoring cartilage tissue and returning joints to a healthy state. The medicine is unique in its indicators. No other drug is able to effectively restore diseased joints, returning the patient to a completely healthy state.

Together with this "Maxiflex" successfully completed clinical trials in Switzerland and the USA. Yet, before we provide the entire population of the country with the remedy, it will be available only within the country. However, until recently we had to ensure its distribution by ourselves, because despite the excellent performance in clinical trials, the International Health Organization management flatly refused to support us. Similarly, we could not reach the pharmacy chains’ shelves, because they also refused to sell our medicine.

Ochieng Mohamed:" And now a question to the Farm pharmacy chain representative, Leonid Povolzhin, who is present in our studio today. Why is this medicine not available in pharmacies?"

Kevin Oduor Apparently, for the simple reason that the manufacturer did not get some points approved during the negotiations. I do not know about such cases when some of my colleagues refused to accept for sale a medicine that is certified in the country, has passed clinical trials and, moreover, shows such good results. Most likely, the problem is of some technical origin.

Caroline Omar: Don't lie for the whole country to hear! I personally was present at the negotiations with almost all pharmacy chains. They said in plain text that they didn’t want to sell "Maxiflex" because of its price. Specifically, your employees offered to put a high price on it! And then, if we agreed, it would be sold in pharmacies. None of the pharmacies wants to sell it, because we are now distributing it almost for 4900 KES* with the International Health Organization support. And they insisted on maintaining the same pricing policy. Pharmacies are a business and they need a profit, in this case a super profit. They don't care about people's health.

Ochieng Mohamed: Kevin, how true is this?

Kevin OduorPerhaps the pricing moment was really mentioned at the negotiations but you should understand that pharmacy chains are private enterprises. We take medicines for sale exclusively at our discretion. It is impossible to force us to sell something. And we also need to pay salaries to our employees, pharmacists in pharmacies, office staff, and so on. We cannot afford to sell some medicine at a loss. What the Research Institute offered us is not business, it's more like some kind of socialism. Are you suggesting putting up for sale a drug that will not only bring zero profit by itself but also will bring down sales of all other well-known joints treatment medicines? Here, as they say, there is nothing personal, just business.

Caroline Omar : That is, you admit that in fact the whole problem was about your desire to make a super profit. And you're wrong about that being "nothing personal". For every pensioner with sore joints, this is just personal. You do not allow them to be treated properly because of your greed for money! And then you say it's just business. What kind of business is this when it comes to people's lives? You are not selling concrete for construction, you are selling medicines which people's health and lives depend on!

Ochieng Mohamed: Caroline, and how do you distribute"Maxiflex" yourself?

Caroline Omar : "The remedy is distributed directly from our Research Institute, at the expense of the Institute's budget. Not so long ago, we finally received support from the International Health Organization. There, after reviewing the clinical trials results and the results of the Maxiflex practical application, they immediately allocated funds for its distribution. The Research Institute of Rheumatology is not engaged in commercial activities. We do not sell the drug, we distribute it for 4900 KES*, as part of a joint program with International Health Organization.

This is the core of the conflict with pharmacy chains. They want to make money on sick people, squeezing the most money out of them. Old and ineffective medicines are ideal for this. Whereas our capsules not only solve the problem forever, but also are distributed at a frankly ridiculous and fixed price. In production, the cost of the drug is about 1400 shilling, the rest is compensated by the Research Institute budget and the state.

We found a way out — the Research Institute specialists created a special site where you can apply for "Maxiflex" medicine and get it for 4900 KES* All you need to do is just leave your name and contact details. After that, you will be contacted to clarify the convenient delivery time. We tried to make everything as simple as possible so that everyone could get the medicine, even if they have not ordered anything online before.

Ochieng Mohamed:A question for another our guests, Patrick Muthoni, the chief rheumatologist. How comes a unique medicine created in the country and distributed for 4900 KES* can’t reach the people? Is this some kind of conspiracy against the population? Why aren't you helping?

Patrick Muthoni: Ochieng, I want to emphasize that despite the position, the chief rheumatologist is mainly engaged in coordinating scientific research and strategic issues. I have no influence on commercial pharmacy chains. Besides, I have been working at this position not for so long. All I can do is recommend some kind of drug to them. Definitely, I did recommend "Maxiflex". Actually, the entire scientific community understands what a colossal breakthrough in the sphere of joint treatment has been made. To my deep regret, pharmacy chains did not react in any way which is generally understandable and logical, since in the case of mass distribution of "Maxiflex", they will suffer multimillion-dollar losses.

Now we are working at the ways to distribute "Maxiflex" through state clinics and hospitals. It's true that there are some bureaucratic problems, but I hope that the issue will be resolved within the next 10-12 months.

Ochieng Mohamed:Sounds like a year minimum will pass before "Maxiflex" appears in clinics and hospitals. What shall sick people do before the medicine reaches their doctors?

Patrick Muthoni The Research Institute of Rheumatology has an official website for this medicine, where everyone can submit an application and get "Maxiflex" for 4900 KES*. You can use it right now. Another good news is that within just a month we have agreed and adopted a regulation on "National Online Pharmacy", which will be controlled by the International Health Organization and where similar medicines distributed at the expense of the budget will be exhibited. The first medicine exposed so far is "Maxiflex". Just yesterday "National Online Pharmacy" started its work and it is already possible to get the medicine there. In both cases, the medicine is shipped from the Research Institute of Rheumatology warehouse. As far as I understand, they deliver the medicine very quickly and are able to cover any number of applications.

Caroline Omar : A small remark about "any number of people ". At the moment, the Research Institute does not have enough production volumes to cover the whole Kenya. Therefore, we issue batches of the medicine gradually as soon as they are produced. At the moment, we are suggesting the remaining amount of 700 "Contaflex" packages, which you can get for 4900 KES*. We will still need time to increase production, even with the International Health Organization’s support.

Ochieng Mohamed:"What would be your farewell remark for our spectators?"

Caroline Omar : I want to draw readers' attention to the fact that back and joint diseases are getting younger, and even mild periodic pains are a reason to pay attention to the problem. No need to wait for bone marrow or blood cancer to appear, no need to just wait for your death.

Attention! A conclusion was made that - is the best time to start treating the spine and joints diseases. Due to the stabilization of the average temperature, metabolism accelerates, blood circulation in the body speeds up, the flow of blood and oxygen to the internal organs increases thus enhancing the effect of using the capsules. Recovery from back and joint pain, as well as concomitant diseases, occurs 58% faster than it would happen at any other time of the year. Body functions restore 100% during the entire course of treatment.

You can get "Maxiflex" 4900 KES* exclusively on the official website!

And especially for our readers, we place a direct application form for capsules under the International Health Organization state program.

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* When ordering a course program