The Mohammed VI University of Health Sciences (UM6SS) and the Institute for Cancer Research (IRC), in collaboration with the Moroccan Society for the Economics of Health Products (SMEPS), have launched a research study on “the impact of Covid-19 on financing and access to oncology care in Morocco”, with the support of MSD (Merck Sharp and Dohme).
A joint statement from UM6SS, IRC and SMEPS, states that this is a research project selected from several works submitted under the independent Oncology Policy Grants program of MSD and which aims to encourage research around several themes related to cancer and to enable institutions to strengthen their capacities in terms of research, teaching and dissemination.
Thus, the research project aims to analyze the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on oncology and to explore possible approaches to reduce, in the future, the negative effects of similar health crises on patients in Morocco.
“Because although Morocco has made progress in the fight against cancer, access to cancer care and diagnosis has faced, since 2020, many challenges linked to the Covid-19 pandemic”, underlines the press release, noting that “whether in urban or rural areas, the health crisis situation has restricted access to treatment in hospitals and centers for many patients and has thus impacted the continuity of care provided to them. lavished”.
“This study is perfectly in line with the prerogatives of the UM6SS, namely to offer a platform for studies and research, since it is undeniable that the Covid-19 pandemic has been a real slowdown in access to care and administration of cancer treatments, but also in other therapeutic areas,” said Pr Chakib Nejjari, president of UM6SS, quoted in the press release.
For his part, Pr Samir Ahid, dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy of the UM6SS and president of the SMEPS explained that this study also aims to address the financing of the introduction of new health technologies, particularly in the field cancer, adding that it will also explore innovative pricing, reimbursement and contracting approaches to determine their effect on reducing the cost burden.
For his part, the director of the IRC, Pr Karim Ouldim declared that “the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has been real on chronic diseases in general, and on cancerology in particular”, noting that ” this study is an opportunity for us to identify the consequences, in the short and medium term, and to see to what extent we can in the future avoid any delay in access to care”.
MSD’s CEO, Alain Barry, said that MSD is “happy to collaborate with these prestigious scientific and academic partners and to be able to support scientific research”.
UM6SS is a non-profit semi-public Moroccan university with a health training and research center. It brings together six faculties and major schools providing training in the various health professions.
The IRC is a public interest group dedicated to cancer research. It has legal personality and financial and scientific autonomy.
The IRC, unifier and facilitator of national research in the fields of the fight against cancer, works to be a research hub at the service of the citizen. Its vocation is to enable innovative and multidisciplinary research for the benefit of the patient.
A non-profit learned society, the SMEPS is active, among other things, in the promotion of continuing education in the economics of health products and in therapeutic evaluation, as well as in the promotion of research in the disciplines of pharmacoeconomics. , health economics and in cooperation between the various health actors.
For more than 130 years, MSD (Merck Sharp and Dohme) has been inventing for life, producing medicines and vaccines for many of the world’s most devastating diseases in pursuit of its mission to save and improve lives. . MSD is the American name for Merck & Co., Inc., headquartered in Kenilworth, New Jersey, USA.
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