The Ministry of Public Health announced that the third phase of the implementation of the decision to harmonize drug prices across the GCC countries will go into effect starting Sunday, April 17.

The Ministry said in a statement that the current phase includes 400 medicines and the prices will drop by 82.93 percent to 0.24 percent. The average decline is 26.13 percent.

Prices of 76 medications are being reduced for the second time, which includes medicines for cardiovascular, respiratory diseases, infectious diseases, muscles and bones, gastrointestinal, eye diseases and others.

The total number of drugs that have had their prices reduced so far has reached 2,873, which is 62.5 percent of the total 4,600 registered drugs.

The government had in September 2014 reduced the prices of more than 280 medicines including several popular medicines like aspirin and panadol. Prices of the drugs then fell by 5 percent to more than 60 percent.

The unprecedented decrease was the result of a decision by the GCC countries to unify the prices of about 2,500 medicines in a phased manner. [Qatar News Agency]