In recent weeks, the Western world has been running short of medicines. Before Christmas, pharmacies were mostly short of children’s fever syrup, now you will look in vain for antibiotics like amoxicillin. Although there is an altertive to them, it is not ideal and, moreover, does not solve the main problem – something with the supplies went completely wrong. But what exactly? The reason for this is the whole system of how drugs get to us.
No amoxicillin or other antibiotics at the end of December This was reported by 25 of the 27 member states of the European Union, according to the European Medicines Agency. Similar reports have been received from health authorities in America and Cada. So it’s not only in the Czech Republic, drug shortages affect entire continents.
Only what is definitely not enough in a particular week changes locally. On Wednesday, for example, France banned the sale of paracetamol-based products online. Antipyretics and painkillers are widely used to keep people from hoarding them and remaining available to those most in need. On the other hand, Germany is facing a shortage of some cancer drugs.
However, not at such a stage that the pharmacies were completely empty. In the case of the Czech Republic, the bottom tens of medicines out of 10,000 are missing, registered with us, warns the Innovative Pharmaceutical Industry Association. However, its chief executive David Kolář admitted to Blesk Zprávy that the situation is dire. “Drug manufacturers, in collaboration with other partners, are trying to find solutions to deliver missing drugs or their altertives to patients in the shortest possible time,” declared
A sharp increase in cases
Drug shortages are nothing new. According to the Fincial Times, they occurred to a relatively greater extent in the midst of the covid pandemic, for example, there were no anesthetics, which was caused by global logistical difficulties caused by the pandemic. But not much public attention was paid to him, because the world was primarily focused on the fight against covid.
But now the world has learned to live with covid and society works without restrictions. And as people went outside to socialize, there has been a boom in respiratory and other illnesses this winter season. Therefore, the demand for medicines is very high, as Kolář says.
But manufacturers in previous years of the pandemic failed to do so.
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Source: Blesk