Portugal’s minister of national defence, Nuno Melo, on Tuesday has stressed the importance of the country contributing, in the context of the European Union and NATO, to ensuring strategic reserves of medicines in the current geopolitical context. “From a military point of view, when we talk about the need to secure these reserves, we also think in the context of this geopolitical change,” he said. “And we know that many medicines today are manufactured in other latitudes, and it is also our obligation in the European Union and in the context of NATO to ensure that this production, which is strategic, I insist, is also done, as far as Portugal is concerned, on national territory.” Melo was speaking to journalists after a visit of around three hours to the National Medicines Laboratory in Lisbon – an army institution – in which he was accompanied by the minister of health, Ana Paula Martins, the chief of staff of the army, General Mendes Ferrão, among other officials. He stressed that regular citizens “have no idea of the importance” of what goes on in the institution.
Defence minister stresses importance of strategic medicines reserve
The National Medicines Laboratory produces various medicines that are no longer on the market, either because they have been discontinued or because they are no longer profitable from an economic point of view, supplying them to Portugal's National Health Service (SNS). Image: Mário Cruz/ Lusa
