Status: 12/15/2022 10:54 am
Some medicines for children and adolescents are currently in short supply. One reason is supply bottlenecks in funds from China and India. The President of the Association of Pediatricians calls on the Federal Government to act.
In view of the delivery problems with fever juice and other preparations for young patients, pediatricians have called for immediate measures from the federal government in the current wave of illness. “We are experiencing a very high demand for antipyretic drugs such as ibuprofen or paracetamol because an extremely large number of children are currently ill,” said the President of the Professional Association of Pediatricians, Thomas Fischbach, of the Düsseldorf newspaper “Rheinische Post”.
It is an indictment that medicines as simple as fever syrup are often no longer available. According to Fischbach, the government must take care of the procurement.
Delivery bottleneck for medicines from India and China
Fischbach reported on “desperate parents” who would make representations to the practices. “There are too few providers of such drugs because the fixed price regulation has led to a migration of production to low-wage countries such as India and China,” said the pediatrician. “There are now supply chain problems there, which in turn leads to supply bottlenecks.”
There had also recently been supply bottlenecks for some medicines for adults. Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) wants to react by changing procurement law. A spokesman for the Ministry of Health said at the end of November that the aim is to broaden supply chains so that the dependence on individual manufacturers decreases.
Association President calls for procurement campaign
The situation is unsatisfactory despite existing instruments for alternative preparations in the event of bottlenecks. Lauterbach had that ARD Capital Studio said, the health insurance companies should no longer be forced to buy medicines and active ingredients where they are cheapest.
The plans for legislative changes presented by the federal government would come too late, however, criticized the association president. “We now need a procurement campaign pushed by politicians in order to quickly get fever juice, certain antibiotics and other preparations for small children that have become rare in an emergency, as was the case at the beginning of the corona pandemic.”
Due to the increased number of respiratory infections in children, the demand for fever juices is also increasing.
Image: picture alliance / picture agency-o
Federal Institute: Scarcity is also a result of distribution problems
From the point of view of the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices, the shortage of fever juices is partly due to the fact that some pharmacies and wholesalers are overstocking their warehouses and the medicines are missing elsewhere. The institute announced that it was still possible to assume that there would be a distribution problem.
Another reason for the bottlenecks is the increased number of respiratory infections in children, which increases demand. The Advisory Board of the Federal Institute strongly recommends pharmacies and wholesalers “not to stock up for more than a week, as this leads to undersupply elsewhere”.
In addition, it should be checked whether tablets with the same active ingredient are an alternative for older children – children from the age of four can take divisible tablets with paracetamol and children from the age of six with ibuprofen.