Ukraine's Health Ministry seeks to start pharmaceuticals procurement using the 2017 budget funds in January, Acting Health Minister Ulana Suprun said on Thursday.

"We will make order for 2017 in January. This week we had talks with four international organizations that would be involved in procurement," she said.

Suprun said that the ministry would expand the list of international organizations to procure medicines. Along with UNICEF, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Britain's Crown Agents, one more international organization - Partnership for Supply Chain Management (PFSCM) – will take part in procurement.

Commenting on procurement using the 2016 budget funds, Suprun said that the list of medicines for procurement under almost all programs has been drawn up.

"By the end of November all suppliers will be completed. Now some vaccines have not been delivered. We agreed that they will be shipped by the end of the year, so they would expire later," she said.

As reported, in 2015, the ministry transferred medicine procurement under 12 budget-funded programs worth over UAH 2.197 billion to three international organizations: UNICEF, UNDP and Crown Agents.

As of September 28, the organizations supplied 86.43% of medicines bought using the 2015 budget funds.