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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Production of chloroquine of great importance for Serbia

Belgrade, 21 April 2020

Prime Minister Ana Brnabic today visited the pharmaceutical company Galenika, which produced the first 372,000 chloroquine tablets used in the treatment of COVID-19, and said that Serbia can now produce everything needed, but ventilators, to fight the coronavirus.

Brnabic, who visited the company in the company of RFZO director Sanja Radojevic Skodric, emphasised that the importance of what Galenika did and the Brazilian company EMS, which owns Galenika, was extremely important.

In just a few days, thanks to a prescription given by EMS, they were able to order, ship and produce the medicine, she said, and emphasised that chloroquine is not intended for retail sale, but that all quantities will be handed over to RFZO, which will further distribute.

The Prime Minister, expressing her gratitude for the donation to the Brazilian company, said that chloroquine would be sufficient not only for treatment at this time, but also for a possible new wave of the epidemic.

She once again urged everyone to take precautions to have a normal life and to remain committed to fighting the epidemic, whose end is yet to be seen, but has not yet come.

Skodric conveyed her gratitude to Galenika for producing, at this point, the most important drug for the treatment of COVID-19.

According to her, the drug was declared a key drug in China in late December last year in the fight against infection and has become part of all therapies to treat COVID-19 patients.

She noted that Serbia had been importing the medicine for years for patients with rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus, pointing out that those quantities were not sufficient for the treatment of COVID-19.

Due to the ban on export of medicines from the EU, we got into a problem we did not expect, and our only output was our own production, which was initiated, Skodric explained.