‘Nothing is available’: Pharmacies experiencing shortage of adult cold and flu medication | 24CA News
Pharmacies throughout Toronto and past are experiencing shortages of grownup chilly and flu remedy, with many pharmacy cabinets having little to no stock.
Semah Salib, a pharmacist at Woodgreen Discount Pharmacy mentioned it’s an unprecedented scarcity and one thing he hasn’t seen occur in earlier than.
“Nothing is available,” he mentioned. “It’s never happened before. Over the last 20 years, we always have supply and out of the supply we have some extra … but this is the first year we have none.”
Global News visited no less than a dozen pharmacies throughout town and all have been discovered to be experiencing grownup chilly and flu remedy stock points; some had restricted stock, whereas others had none.
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Justin Bates from the Ontario Pharmacists Association mentioned the shortages pharmacies are experiencing are as a consequence of various various factors, together with the scarcity of youngsters’s remedy that can also be being felt nationwide.
“What often happens is one shortage begets another. When we looked at short-term solutions to the children’s shortage, we were recommending splitting tablets of the adult formulation and putting it into food for children,” Bates mentioned.
“We had an earlier cold and flu season. We have COVID outbreaks and the triple threat of the flu as well as RSV … All of these things created the perfect storm.”
Canada has been experiencing a nationwide scarcity of youngsters’s ache drugs for months, leaving mother and father scrambling to handle their youngsters’s fever and ache as charges of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and influenza skyrocket.
The drug scarcity has led to requires Canada to speculate extra in its pharmaceutical manufacturing capacities for important drugs.
Bates mentioned another excuse why pharmacies have seen chilly and flu remedy provide dwindle is because of Canada’s reliance on worldwide provide.
“Our domestic capacity is very limit,” he mentioned. “We don’t have a lot of manufacturers and we rely on international supply of products.”
People in want of grownup chilly and flu remedy are being requested to talk with a trusted medical skilled.
“There are still some options to split tablets of different formulations, as well as the potential to do compounding, and pharmacists have been offering to do that as a solution throughout the shortage,” mentioned Bates, including there are house treatments folks can flip to as properly.
“Not all fevers … and colds need to be treated. It helps manage symptoms, but they don’t cure it so there are home remedies — everything from fluid intake and rest — there are recommendations that health care providers can give to ease some of those symptoms.”
In an announcement to Global News, Health Canada mentioned drug shortages are a “complex global problem.”
“Health Canada recognizes the negative impact of drug shortages on patients, health care professionals and the health-care system, and works together with stakeholders to build a more open and secure drug supply system,” the assertion learn. “Everyone has a role to play in addressing drug shortages.”
Health Canada mentioned the nation’s meals and drug rules require drug sellers to report on-line when they’re “not able to meet demand for a product or when they stop selling a product.”
“According to the site, there are no shortages of adult cold medications reported by drug sellers,” Health Canada mentioned.
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