According to Sonia de La Provôté, the lack of amoxicillin has created a “domino effect” due to the use of substitutes, and now “the whole chain of antibiotics is in short supply”.
“We lack all kinds of medicine”, alert on franceinfo Friday, May 12 Sonia de La Provôté, Senator Union Centriste du Calvados, President of the Senate Committee of Inquiry into the shortage of drugs and the choices of the pharmaceutical industry. According to the senator, “just over 3,000 drugs are in short supply, not counting those that are in short supply”.
All sectors are affected, “from pediatrics to antibiotics”, including the media amoxicillin. Regarding the latter, the boxes are coming “drop by drop” in pharmacies. “It’s a bit of a hassle for patients to find the antibiotic in question”, underlines Sonia de La Provôté. A shortage which is not without consequence, specifies the president of the senatorial commission of inquiry since it has led “a domino effect. (…) We have substituted other antibiotics as we go along and it is the whole chain of antibiotics in the end, in all therapeutic classes, which is currently in short supply”, she laments. Worse still, are also concerned “cancer drugs and antiepileptics, explains the chosen one.
“It is the whole therapeutic management that is destabilized”
Sonia de La Provôtéon franceinfo
If the substitution by other drugs remains possible, it is not without risk also warns the senator. “There is a side effect in terms of cost to health in both the literal and figurative sense. When you replace with another drug, it is not exactly the same. So necessarily the therapeutic management is a little different Sometimes we do it well and sometimes we do it badly or less well”recognizes Sonia de La Provôté who also denounces “delays in support”.
The situation is likely to get even worse
This situation is not new, according to the senator who recalls that the first mission of the senate dates back to the summer of 2018. At the time, 700 drugs were in shortage. They are more than 3,000 today. “We saw things happen, we can’t say we didn’t realize”denounces the president of the commission of inquiry who fears that the situation will worsen further.
The senators castigate the bad strategy around the pharmaceutical industry allowing in recent years to relocate the manufacture of raw materials abroad, in particular in the Asian countries hit hard from 2020 by the Covid pandemic. “Where we are now: we hardly manufacture any more chemistry. We are only starting a little again”regrets Sonia de La Provôté who is claiming “to reconstitute the entire drug value chain”. Something that will not be easy to implement since these are Seveso classified sites. “We will not be able to do it for 6,000 drugs, it must be done for a ‘hort list, but of essential drugs for which we must be able to respond to the slightest alert’she concludes.