LEGAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PHARMACEUTICAL ACTIVITY UNDER THE EMERGENCY CONDITIONS: PANDEMIC AND WAR

Abstract

The aim: Study of the system of pharmaceutical activity legal support in emergency conditions, namely, the period of epidemics outbreak and during the war. Materials and methods: In the mentioned study, we analyze the state of the governmental pharmaceutical policy during the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Legal norms and doctrinal positions of scientists regarding the above-mentioned issue are studied. The work analyzes the information presented by specialists in various scientific publications, and also uses scientific methods from a medical and legal point of view. This material is based on dialectical, comparative, analytical, synthetic, and complex research methods. This study analyzes the activities of pharmaceutical enterprises in the emergency state and the problem of ensuring patients’ rights to medical care and epidemic safety. As part of the above-mentioned methods, we investigated the problems of pharmacies utilizing questionnaires. A survey of representatives of pharmacy chains, managers of purchasing pharmaceutical products and their pricing, in the cities of Kharkiv, Poltava, Kyiv, Mykolaiv and Lviv in the number of 460 specialists, shows negative trends in price gouging. This is a violation of patients’ rights to affordable pharmaceutical products. Conclusions: The pharmaceutical industry of Ukraine was not prepared in advance for extraordinary events, such as a pandemic and martial law, as well as for other natural disasters and foreseeable emergencies. This negatively affected and continues to affect the health of patients.