Starting from April, medicines will be sold in pharmacies by electronic prescription - Ministry of Health

Starting in April, a prescription will be required for all blood pressure lowering drugs, heart disease treatment, hormonal drugs and some popular painkillers. They will be available at the pharmacy not only with a paper prescription but also with an electronic prescription.

This was reported by the Ministry of Health of Ukraine and explained which medicines are prescription drugs.

"The Ministry of Health is not expanding the list of prescription drugs and does not make all medicines prescription. That is, all those medicines that were previously subject to a doctor's prescription will be available from April using an electronic prescription," the Ministry said.

Prescription medicines include those that are subject to sale only upon a doctor's prescription and are prescribed on special prescription forms.

According to the Ministry of Health, this list includes, in particular:

• antibiotics;
• anticonvulsants;
• hormonal drugs (including contraceptives);
• drugs for the treatment of blood pressure;
• drugs for the treatment of heart disease;
• certain anthelmintic drugs;
• certain antihistamines;

• blood thinners;
• antidepressants, neuroleptics and relaxants;
• steroid medicines;
• some pain, cough and sedative medicines.

To find out whether a particular medicine is a prescription drug, just check the instructions for use to see if it says "By prescription".

If you take a prescription drug on a regular basis, the undoubted advantage of an e-prescription is that, unlike a paper prescription, you do not need to visit a doctor every time to get a prescription for a medicine. You can do it remotely.

To do this, the system must record your doctor's diagnosis and first appointment. After this appointment, the medication will always be available in your smartphone.

Therefore, it is important to check the instructions for the medicines you take in advance, and if they are prescription, take care of getting the appropriate prescription from your doctor in April in order to conveniently and easily purchase medicines at the pharmacy in the future.

As OBOZREVATEL previously reported, new prices for medicines have been set in Ukraine. Prices have increased by 20.2% compared to last year.

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