Brazil experienced a veritable “national blackout” of controlled drugs due to a lack of data. The reason is that Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency) faces a two-year gap in the lack of national data on the prescription and sale of controlled drugs to consumers, including narcotics, psychotropic drugs and antibiotics.

Blackout of health data throughout Brazil. Photo: Rio de Janeiro Department of Health/Disclosure/ND

The lack of information is so serious that it has prompted organizations such as the Federal Pharmaceutical Council to speak out on the issue. The topic concerns the risk of abuse and diversion into illicit use of these substances.

The situation began in December 2021 when Anvisa issued a rule that led to the suspension of the SNGPC (National System for the Administration of Controlled Products).

The justification for this measure was the “instability” of the platform, which previously received detailed information on all sales of controlled drugs made by private pharmacies, including the name of the drug, the prescriber, the patient, the date and place of purchase.

In the system in place since 2014, the submission of data became optional, which in practice led to an interruption in the transfer of records by pharmacies. This suspension, initially considered “temporary”, continues to this day, depriving health oversight of important information about the prescribing, sale and consumption of these drugs.

Anvisa told UOL that it is “exploring viable and necessary solutions for the recovery” of SNGPC, but there are no forecasts for its resumption. Because of this gap, Brazil faces a shortage of electronic monitoring tools for controlled substances, jeopardizing public health research and allowing for potential risks such as indiscriminate consumption and diversion of these drugs into the illicit market.

The suspension of mandatory reporting also affects the ability to carry out on-site inspections, as pharmacies are now only required to maintain internal records for two years, after which they can be waived. Thus, even after the system reopens in Brazil, there will be a vacuum in historical data, which will complicate future public health analysis.

Although Anvisa has been dealing with this situation for two years, the pharmaceutical industry has its own system for monitoring each doctor’s prescriptions, covering all drugs, not just controlled ones.

Private data provided by the Federal Pharmaceutical Council indicates sales of antidepressants and mood stabilizers grew by 36% between 2019 and 2022. However, without a publicly available database such as the SNGPC, it is impossible to analyze and understand this growth in detail. their causes, affecting the ability to respond to public health problems and possible disruptions.