Pediatric organizations from five European countries including France have challenged their Ministers of Health, including François Braun in France, about the “persistent shortage” of drugs intended for the youngest.
For several months, shortages of medicines for children have been increasing in France. “We pray that they don’t get sick,” says BFMTV Alhem, who came to a pharmacy in Nice for her two children with the flu.
Rahima Nucera, the pharmacist, is helpless in front of her clients: “We have almost 80% of our list of drugs that are not available. For example, we are going to be prescribed 1 gram, we are going to do 500 and 500 milligrams, or simply change the molecule”.
This situation of shortage does not only affect France: all of Europe is suffering from it to the point that professionals are mobilizing to try to stem the shortage of medicines.
This situation has indeed been known for a long time by paediatricians, some European representatives of whom have signed an open letter addressed to several Ministries of Health across five European countries, including François Braun in France, to whom they ask to “do everything possible to ensure that children and adolescents grow and develop in good health”.
They explain in particular that “the supply problems of recent months prevent us from prescribing the appropriate treatments and in accordance with the recommendations. The health of children and adolescents is permanently threatened”. French, German, Italian, Austrian and Swiss pediatricians have signed this letter.
“We are forced to tinker: for example for syrups suitable for children, we are forced to use dilutions”, details Andreas Werner, president of the French Association of Ambulatory Pediatrics and signatory of the letter.
The medicines in tension are antibiotics, antipyretics (medicines against fever in particular), analgesics, asthma treatments and pediatric vaccines. The pediatricians judge in their letter that “such a shortage of drugs would not have been imaginable a few years ago in our countries”.
Plans at French and European levels
Faced with the shortage, a D system is being organized while waiting for more strategic measures in the medium term. The low abundance of these drugs is particularly linked to “restrictive measures and the regulation of drug prices imposed by the health authorities”.
At the beginning of February, François Braun announced a plan aimed at preventing any future crisis. The government notably said that it was going to authorize price increases on certain drugs to encourage manufacturers to produce them in larger quantities.
The European Commission announced on Wednesday that it intends to require pharmaceutical companies to establish a plan to prevent shortages as well as a list of essential medicines which could serve as a basis before a possible obligation to build up stocks.
“We have asked Europe several times to have established stocks. However, we are not sure that the shapes intended for children will be taken into account in these stocks”, asks Catherine Vergely, General Secretary of the Union of Associations of Parents of Children with Cancer or Leukaemia.
Other health professionals also advocate the relocation of drug production to Europe or France.
