Pharmacists’ Association sounds the alarm: There is a risk of supply bottlenecks for children’s medicines

Pharmacists’ Association sounds the alarm
There is a risk of supply bottlenecks for medicines for children

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Pharmacies are constantly missing important medicines for patients. Now some medicine for children is apparently becoming scarce. Things are currently looking particularly critical when it comes to antibiotics.

The supply bottlenecks for medicines are now also affecting important medicines for children. “It is particularly worrying that many antibiotic juices for children and babies are again missing,” said Thomas Preis, head of the North Rhine Pharmacists Association, to the “Rheinische Post”.

Things are currently looking particularly critical for the antibiotics azithromycin and clarithromycin. “These broad-spectrum antibiotics are the first choice for whooping cough and pneumonia caused by mycoplasma and are hardly available anymore. Mycoplasma infections are currently increasing in both children and adults.”

Preis further criticized: “The RSV immunization for newborns and infants, which is actually recommended from October, cannot yet start. The manufacturer Sanofi announced a few weeks ago that the necessary drug Beyfortus cannot be made available quickly enough.”

The association head’s conclusion: “Despite the Federal Ministry of Health’s Delivery Bottleneck Elimination Act, we are once again poorly prepared for the coming infection season. As was the case when the law came into force a year ago, 500 medications are listed in the official list as not being available for delivery.”

It is not just Germany that is struggling with recurring problems in the pharmaceutical supply chains. “Many important active ingredients are only manufactured by a few large production facilities in China or India,” says Preis. “If their deliveries fail, we will have a big problem here in Europe.” A lack of packaging material also repeatedly leads to production bottlenecks, especially for injection solutions, juices or sprays. Most recently, two manufacturers referred to an insufficient supply of glass bottles and ampoules in their report to the BfArM.

However, one of the most commonly cited reasons why pharmaceutical companies cannot provide enough medicines has to do with demand. On the one hand, this can increase due to unexpected outbreaks of disease. Much more often, however, the shortage symptoms occur as a result of a chain reaction: If a large manufacturer fails, for example due to quality problems, the competitors are usually unable to immediately close the resulting supply gap.

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