Drug shortage is getting worse: These preparations are now acutely affected
Created: 01/15/2023 06:11
By: Linus Prien
Medication for influenza (icon image).
© Bernd Weißbrod/dpa
Anyone who went to a pharmacy in the past few months was faced with gaping gaps on the shelves.
Apparently there is currently no prospect of improvement.
Berlin - There has been a shortage of certain medicines in Germany for several months.
However, the number of missing preparations does not appear to be decreasing.
The reason for the bottlenecks was originally, among other things, the wave of infections that had been plaguing Germany since the end of autumn.
Anke Rüdinger, chairwoman of the Berlin pharmacists' association, told
Deutschlandfunk Kultur
: "And this means that the demand for these cold preparations is particularly high.
It simply cannot be satisfied with normal production.”
In addition, the problem can arguably be traced back to supply chain issues.
The active ingredient production is outsourced to third countries, mainly to Asia.
As you can see, these supply chains can also break off or be disrupted, says Rüdinger.
Shortage of medicines in Germany: Experts draw a precarious situation
“Compared to the autumn, there are still ten to 20 percent more medicines missing.
In total there are still well over 1000," says Thomas Preis, head of the North Rhine Pharmacists' Association, to the
Bild Zeitung
.
In addition, around half of medical prescriptions are currently affected by supply bottlenecks, says Preis.
In many cases, missing drugs have to be replaced with others because of the bottlenecks.
However, this is not always possible, explains Thomas Seufferlein from the board of directors of the German Cancer Society: “The bad thing is that there are not always just as good alternatives for all medicines.
Some are more toxic or not yet approved.”
Shortage of medicines in Germany: Which preparations are missing in the Federal Republic?
According to the
Bild Zeitung
, the following drugs are sometimes in short supply:
anticancer drugs | calcium folinate, nab-paclitaxel, 5-fluorouracil |
diabetes medication | Ozempic |
antibiotics | Penicillin V, Amoxicillin, Cephalospirins, Co-trimoxazole |
blood pressure medication | bisoprolol |
cholesterol lowering agent | atorvastatin, rosuvastatin |
Anti-inflammatory painkillers | ibuprofen, metamizole |
Many of these drugs were also available in the past few months, but not as widely as intended.
Ozempic, for example, was not available for purchase for a certain period of time.
Price looks soberly to the year 2023, sometimes because of supply chain problems: "We therefore expect even more delivery failures," says the pharmacist.
(LP)
