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Will China strangle Europe on medicines?

1 year ago babelfish

Will China strangle Europe on medicines?

Paracetamol, ibuprofen, liquid antibiotics for children are missing. China, which together with India accounts for more than 60% of the global supply of active pharmaceutical ingredients, is turning off the taps and leaving Europe without medicines. Because?

What many feared, and what Start wrote a few days ago, is actually coming true. The disastrous situation facing China, following the easing of the zero Covid policy, is having repercussions on Europe, where medicines such as paracetamol and penicillin are starting to run short due to both the country's need to satisfy domestic demand and slowdowns in exports.

WHAT THEY SAY IN EUROPE

“Paracetamol: China's export slowdown raises fears of shortage in France,” headlines Libération , “Germany battles dramatic drug shortage,” writes DW , “UK issues 'severe shortage' protocol for penicillin” yes reads in the Financial Times , in Italy already a month ago the alarm was sounded for the lack of about 3 thousand medicines.

WHAT IS THE DUE TO THE SHORTAGE OF MEDICINES

As Ilaria Passarani, secretary general of the Pharmaceutical Group of the European Union (PGEU), which represents EU pharmacists, explained to Euronews Next , there are structural and circumstantial causes behind this phenomenon: "The situation was very serious in over the years in all countries and affected all types of medicines. In the last seven, eight years we have seen an increase in the problem”.

The phenomenon, therefore, is not new, but has worsened with the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and, now, with the export restrictions imposed by China.

WHAT DOES CHINA HAVE TO DO WITH IT?

Among the structural causes Passarani mentioned regarding the shortage of medicines in Europe, the main one is certainly due to the fact that China and India together, in 2020, accounted for more than 60% of the supply of active pharmaceutical ingredients globally. And, as always, heavy dependence on a few countries comes with risks, especially when supply chains break down.

“If there is a problem with a specific manufacturer, there is a worldwide shortage,” Passarani commented.

BUT WHY HAS THE MEDICINES SUPPLY CHAIN ​​INTERRUPTED?

To resume Passarani, among the circumstantial causes that are causing the shortage of medicines, there is certainly the emergency that China has been facing since, at the beginning of December, following unprecedented protests and the lack of expected economic growth, it decided to suddenly loosen the zero Covid policy.

A suicidal choice, in a country with a very low vaccination rate and where only ineffective vaccines have been used, which is causing an undefined – at least officially – number of infections and deaths. The World Health Organization (WHO) said it was "very concerned" and asked Beijing to share its data. According to estimates by health data firm Airfinity , more than 5,000 people are likely dying every day from Covid.

The need to meet the internal need for medicines, responsible for export restrictions, and the bottleneck that is occurring in supply chains due to the lack of workers due to infection, are now also having their effects on Europe.

PARACETAMOL ALARM IN FRANCE

France fears a serious shortage of paracetamol, a drug that has practically no longer been produced in Europe since 2008 and of which China is responsible for half of world production.

FranceInfo says that in China some ibuprofen and paracetamol production sites, but also masks and Covid tests, have been requisitioned by the government and will not be able to send what they previously exported. Not only. Beijing has also invoked the help of India which has said it is available.

A French minister, who wished to remain anonymous, told Les Echos that this is "a very clear risk for the coming weeks", in fact, the country assumes that the consequences of these tensions should be felt within a month and the authorities invite citizens not to panic by hoarding medicines.

And speaking of the serious lack of drug production in Europe (which France would like to remedy, at least for its needs), "the lobby of the pharmaceutical industry – writes Euronews Next – has signaled that it is willing to bring back part of the production in Europe, but notes that bureaucracy can be an obstacle” and “also argues that the French health system offers little incentive to do so, given the low sales prices imposed for reimbursable medicines”.

IN GERMANY A LITTLE EVERYTHING IS ALREADY LACKING

“Antibiotics, painkillers, but also blood pressure reducers, cancer, stomach and heart drugs are missing. It's especially difficult to supply medicines for children,” a Berlin pharmacist tells DW as he checks the availability of medicines in the computer database, only to see again that hundreds of medicines are always out of stock.

Parents now search the internet for alternative remedies or drugs (which, according to a French study lead to medication errors in 11% of cases) or go to overcrowded emergency rooms. And the head of the medical association, Klaus Reinhardt, has proposed making markets for medicines, "even those that have expired for a few months", where everyone makes what they have available to others.

THERE ARE NO DRUGS FOR CHILDREN IN THE UK

In the UK, pharmacists report countrywide shortages of antibiotics used to treat strep A "despite the Health Secretary's insistence that the government is 'not aware' of a problem," writes the Guardian .

However, the demand for penicillin and amoxicillin, one of the most commonly prescribed antibiotics for children, has increased in recent days due to the increase in cases of strep A among children in schools, but even here pharmacists do not know how to fix it . This is the tweet from one of them showing that there is no stock available to order either drug:

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/sanita/la-cina-strozzera-europa-sui-medicinali/ on Fri, 23 Dec 2022 10:39:24 +0000.