France faces medicine shortage amid 'tripledemic', people travel to Italy to buy drugs

Paris: France has been facing a severe healthcare crisis as the country battles shortages of hundreds of common medicines including antidiabetics, corticoids, paracetamol or the antibiotic amoxicillin, Doliprane and Efferalgan.

Not just drugs supply issues, France has been also facing staff shortage and burnout among healthcare workers.

France medicine shortage to continue

France Health Minister Francois Braun has warned that shortage of medicines could continue for another two months.

France is already grappling with a triple epidemic of Covid-19, flu and bronchiolitis. Also, more number of children are falling ill in the European country due to severe winters

According to reports, patients are facing difficulties in finding pediatric forms of paracetamol and amoxicillin in most pharmacies.

Last week Braun told broadcaster France 2 that pharmacies are struggling to provide medicines due to rising demand.

He further said the demand for pain relieving paracetamol rose 13 per cent amid the flu epidemic, something the drugs manufacturers did not foresee. “We need two months to be totally replenished and fill our stocks,” he said about the antibiotic amoxicillin, adding that things will be easier for paracetamol.

In the end of last year, ANSM – a medicines regulator in France had also raised alarm about “strong supply tensions” for the version of amoxicillin which is used mostly by children. It also warned that the situation could last till March this year.

Earlier, French Minister for Industry Roland Lescure had said, “This shortage is global, it is linked to a shortage of medicines and paracetamol in particular, linked to the Covid crisis, which has significantly changed consumption behavior and distribution between the city and the hospital.”

Meanwhile, union of pharmacies say that the lack of paracetamol could be due to a higher consumption than usual during the summer, due to the Covid-19 epidemic. “We usually use the summer to replenish stocks,” Pierre-Olivier Variot, of the USPO union was quoted as saying by France Info website.

Why are there no medicines in France?

According to a report by The Connexion, initially the shortages of medicines have been aggravated by supply chain issues related to the Covid-19 pandemic.

About 80 per cent of drug molecules are importer by France from India and China where the production was majorly affected due to the crisis, the report added.

For the unversed, China itself is facing medicine shortages amid massive surge in Covid-19 cases. Though the country has decided to increase its drugs production, it has said that it is reducing export of medicines. This will only worsen the situation in France and Europe.

The ANSM said that in 2022, almost 3,000 medicines were subjected to supply issues.

Some people, including healthcare workers, in France have already stocked up some of the most common drugs to avoid supply issues.

The ANSM – the body assessing the benefits and risks associated with the use of different drugs – said about 90 drugs have been declared out of stock with more than 120 more registered as being under strain nationwide.

How are local pharmacies dealing with this?

As per reports, pharmaceutical companies that had cut back production because of the previously dwindling demand are now scrambling to meet skyrocketing orders which is leading to delays.

Also, the producers of the drugs’ active ingredients have been struggling with shortages. Amid this, pharmacies have been reaching out to people to avoid any panic and have also requested them not to stock up unnecessarily on medication.

A report by news agency AFP had quoted Philippe Besset, president of the FSPF, the leading pharmacists’ union in France saying: “For adult forms of paracetamol, there are plenty of alternatives.”

But “in the pediatric form, 95 per cent of the market is produced by Sanofi, it is not possible to transfer all the volumes to another manufacturer”, he added.

National health authorities have recommended that pharmacists and doctors substitute the drugs in short supply with other medications whenever possible.

Also, authorities have asked pharmacists not to sell more than two boxes per patient.
French people travel Italy to buy medicines

Pharmacies in Italian town Ventimiglia, at the southern French border, have reported an increase in the number of French people visiting them with prescriptions of common drugs.
For the unversed, Ventimiglia is known to have cheaper goods and fuel, but Italian medicines are more expensive than their French counterparts.

Notably, the French social security reimburses the cost of medicines if they are prescribed by French doctors irrespective of where the drugs have been purchased from.

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