Mexico City's Super Pharmacy to Supply Medications and Vaccines

Mexico's president recently announced a "super pharmacy" that will help patients nationwide access medicines and vaccines.

According to VOA reporting on December 29, 2023, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's solution is a centralized warehouse on the outskirts of Mexico City intended to complement local health facilities.

If a patient can't get needed medications at a local hospital, the patient's doctor or pharmacist could have it delivered from the 40,000-square-meter warehouse.

"The pharmacy is going to be big, big, big, and it is going to have all the medications used in the health system," López Obrador said.

The question is whether Mexico can overcome its history of being bad at regulating the pharmaceutical industry, buying medicines, storing them, and distributing them. Extreme centralization also hasn't helped Mexico much in the past in many areas, wrote VOA/AP.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently updated its Mexico Yellow Book for 2024, identifying numerous endemic diseases such as dengue, varicella, and measles.

And the CDC issues Travel Health Alerts regarding specific disease outbreaks in Mexico and advises that all travelers should be updated on their routine immunizations and travel vaccinations.