Fake medicines, expired drugs – Audit exposes health chaos

Friday, May 01, 2026 | 230 Views |

The Central Medical Stores held P95.5 million in expired drugs in the financial year ended March 2023, the bulk of these being COVID-19 drugs, including an P18.8 million batch that arrived three days before expiry, the Auditor General has revealed.

The latest audit, which covers the year to March 2023 and was tabled before Parliament recently, exposes serious lapses in the government medicine supply chain including stunning revelations that P9 million drugs delivered to government were found to be counterfeit.

According to the Auditor General, during the 2022/23 financial year, the CMS held expired drugs valued at a staggering P95.5 million with more than P62 million of this tied to COVID-19 vaccines.

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