It has lived in any German household within the month simply over a month that we have now been in winter. One of the youngsters falls sick. He has flu-like signs. After a go to to the pediatrician, the physician prescribes paracetamol to assist the kid combat in opposition to excessive temperature and discomfort. But in pharmacies there are not any shares of that drugs.
For instance, on the Atoll Pharmacy, positioned close to the busy Hermannstrasse subway and suburban practice station in Berlin, south of the German capital, they acknowledge that there’s nothing left like Apiretal Gotas, the paracetamol in answer that they produce in Spain. Ern Laboratories.
“We solely have paracetamol left for youngsters in suppositories. There is not any answer left and we have no idea after we could have it accessible once more”, a employee from the Atoll Pharmacy tells NIUS. “Right now there’s additionally an absence of different medicines. In Germany we have now at all times seemed for issues to be low cost, more and more cheaper, we have now stopped producing right here, every little thing comes from exterior, and now we do not get issues”, this employee abounds. It positive is just not the primary time that she has needed to clarify the scenario through which her apothecary finds itself.
His explanations coincide with these offered by the German Health Minister, Karl Lauterbach this week. “The coverage of constantly decreasing the costs of medicines for many years has worsened their provide,” Lauterbach defined in an announcement collected by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper. In his understanding, the scenario is “unacceptable.”
“The truth {that a} fever-reducing drugs for youngsters can solely be obtained with issue in Germany, when it may be obtained overseas, is unacceptable,” in line with Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s well being minister. Lauterbach has been defending on this disaster of German medicines the necessity for the energetic ideas of medicines to be produced once more in Europe, as an alternative of relying, as now, on different specialised areas of the world, above all, within the manufacture of generic medicines, cheaper.
“There are medicines that we can not even ask for and which are tough to acquire”
In the Wilhelm Bush Pharmacy, additionally in Berlin, positioned on Karl Marx Strasse, a few fifteen minute stroll from the Atoll Pharmacy, the scenario is comparable. For colds and bronchitis, “there are medicines that we won’t even ask for and which are tough to get proper now in different places,” explains certainly one of his employees to this media outlet.
Germany has been like this for weeks. More than 300 medicines have been counted all through the nation on Olaf Scholz’s record of medicines in brief provide within the nation. In extremely populated areas, similar to North Rhineland (West Germany), the scarcity has affected as much as 1,000 medicines, in line with calculations by Thomas Preis, president of the Association of Pharmacies in that German space, who has cited the Bild newspaper, essentially the most extensively learn in Germany. .
It has change into an issue that, as a result of lack of medicines, households with younger youngsters go to the emergency room for a chilly or angina, infections which are trivial a priori. This has given rise to conditions of “chaos in pediatric clinics”, in line with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on the finish of December. In German hospitals, originally of this yr as much as 10% of the employees had been on sick go away.
Apparently, not solely SARS-CoV-2, the virus of the COVID-19 pandemic, has the capability to current issues for the German well being system. In truth, the flu virus has gained appreciable prominence as of late, given the shortage of means in pharmacies in order that sufferers can take care of their signs.
Up to five.3 million sick in Germany
The peak of this wave of flu infections happened within the final week of 2022. Then there have been greater than 8 million sick folks in Germany, roughly 10% of the inhabitants, in line with the accounts offered by the weekly Die Zeit. . Last week the variety of folks with “a severe respiratory illness reached 5.3 million folks,” in line with the calculations of Olaf Gersemann, a journalist for the newspaper Die Wielt.
In this context, for sure, the demand for medicines has skyrocketed, one thing that additionally explains the deficiencies proven by apothecaries such because the Atoll Pharmacy or the Wilhelm Bush Pharmacy in Berlin. Another issue that explains this case appears to be the hoarding that some pharmacies and drug shares would have carried out, as assessed by the Federal Institute for Medicines.
Be that as it might, there’s not solely a scarcity of medicines for trivial respiratory illnesses typical of the chilly days of autumn and winter. Voices of concern have additionally been raised in regards to the lack of different medicines. Like digitoxin, a drugs that’s used to deal with coronary heart failure, as has been lamented by the Association of Family Physicians of Hessen (west German).
Three-month look ahead to a most cancers drug
Worse nonetheless is the state of affairs that Bild painted originally of the yr, when this newspaper reported on a “dramatic” scenario involving numerous anticancer medication, similar to folinic acid, Nab-Paclitaxel, or 5-flourouacil. In this newspaper, consideration is paid as of late to folks like Horst Wittmann, a retired Bavarian most cancers affected person who has to attend three months to seek out Hepa-Merz Granulat 3000, a drugs that’s a part of his therapy in opposition to the liver tumor he suffers from. .
The German Health Minister has promised to place an finish to the final scenario of drug shortages. He has made it doable for measures to be taken similar to eliminating the reference costs for pediatric medicines as of February 1 in instances similar to paracetamol, ibuprofen and antibiotics. Another measure proposed by Lauterbach, a lot mentioned by pharmacists, is to transform “tablets into oral answer” when the drinkable drugs is just not accessible however mentioned drugs is offered in tablets.
In the long run, the German authorities wish to give precedence to merchandise made in Europe, thought-about “extra dependable” than people who apparently fail now and have put not a couple of sufferers within the nation in examine.