"If necessary, we make the juice ourselves"

Created: 07/07/2022, 2:00 p.m

By: Michaele Heske

Jens Krautscheid also has empty drawers in the park pharmacy in Dorfen.

But nobody has to worry about their health.

© Michaele Heske

The pharmacists in the district are currently struggling with drug shortages.

However, the situation is not dangerous to health.

District – "Do you still have ibuprofen?" A customer wants to know in the park pharmacy in Dorfen.

You have read that there are delivery problems.

"That is indeed the case," confirms owner Jens Krautscheid.

At first it was just Nurofen, a fever and pain reliever for children popular with families.

The entire range of ibuprufen active ingredients is now affected.

According to Krautscheid, there is no reason to panic: "As long as people buy the preparations in normal quantities, we have enough in stock." He categorically rejects buying hamsters.

"There are parents who would like to buy four or five bottles of Nurofen in advance, but we don't do that."

There are also alternatives to liquid children's ibuprofen, says Armin Braun, who runs the campus pharmacy and the city pharmacy in Erding together with his wife.

Manufacturers other than Ratiopharm also offer the fever juice, and pharmacies also offer lozenges or suppositories, explains Baun.

Alternatively, the active ingredient paracetamol can be administered for colds.

"Two years ago, at the beginning of the pandemic, the situation was much more tense," says Braun.

The problem is there, no question.

But it can be solved: "If necessary, we make the juice ourselves.

But we are still a long way from that.”

Whether influenza, corona or flu infections - the need for ibuprofen is currently increased, explains Markus Marschall, spokesman for the Erding district medical association.

"There may be fewer supplies in the pharmacies."

Drug bottlenecks are no longer unusual: “The price pressure on pharmaceutical companies is enormous.

Manufacturers have outsourced production, and raw materials for medicines are now almost exclusively produced in Asia,” says the lung specialist.

Contaminated batches made themselves felt in pharmacies everywhere, as did plant closures in China and restricted exports, for example from India since the pandemic.

Incidentally, this is where most generics are manufactured worldwide, i.e. inexpensive medicines with the same active ingredient.

The Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices currently lists 253 drugs with delivery bottlenecks.

The town hall pharmacy in Dorfen currently has 180 preparations that are currently difficult to obtain.

"We depend on global supply chains, but we've been used to that for years," says pharmacist Natalie Frauscher.

About three years ago, antihypertensive drugs from the sartans group, which had been unavailable on the German drug market for months, were missing.

“We then ordered the pills from America,” she recalls.

And pharmacist Jens Krautscheid adds: "If there are delivery problems with rare medicines, I also call the customers and ask them to fill their prescriptions as soon as possible."

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