Signe Jantone: Latvia imports 95% of medicines. What will we do in a crisis?

The recent drone incident in Rēzekne served as a stark wake-up call, underscoring a critical vulnerability in Latvia's national security: our heavy reliance on imported medicines. With 95% of our pharmaceuticals coming from abroad, the question arises: what will happen when a crisis strikes? This reliance challenges the very notion of national resilience, which must extend beyond military might to encompass the everyday essentials that sustain our population.

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The security of daily life is fragile, and it is precisely in such moments that it becomes clear that the state's resilience begins not only with the army or border defense but also with everyday things – whether people will have access to medicine, food, and information.

My family's experience during the Rēzekne alert was a moment of stark realization. The immediate scramble to ascertain the location of passports, emergency bags, chargers, food, sleeping bags, and crucially, medicines, highlighted how unprepared we were, even in our family home in Riga, let alone at our rural property near Rēzekne. The closure of schools, kindergartens, and pharmacies in Rēzekne due to the incident, coupled with the morning's uncertainty about whether to go to work, demonstrated how quickly daily life can be disrupted. This is precisely why national resilience must include ensuring access to critical items like electricity, food, communication, and medicine.

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Resilience, in my opinion, is the state's ability to provide people with critically important things like electricity, food, communications (including information about what is happening), and medicine in times of crisis. Medicine is the first thing we must put in our 72-hour bag.

While Latvia possesses a strategic advantage in its domestic pharmaceutical industry – capable of full-cycle drug supply from research to production and export – this capacity is often understated. We have the scientific institutions, experienced specialists, and decades of tradition in chemistry and pharmacy. This is not merely an economic sector; it is a strategic asset that can bolster our resilience. Ensuring that pharmacies, like other critical services, remain functional during emergencies, and that we have adequate local reserves of essential medicines, is paramount. The Rēzekne incident should prompt a serious re-evaluation of our preparedness, ensuring that our "72-hour bags" are truly comprehensive and that our national infrastructure, including our pharmaceutical supply chain, is robust enough to withstand unforeseen challenges.

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In times of crisis, local pharmaceutical production, which includes drug manufacturing, supply infrastructure, and pharmacies, becomes one of the main components of national security.