Yasmina Kattou // Credit photo: Magali Cohen / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP
06:58, October 12, 2024
To prevent a new scenario of drug shortages like last winter from happening again, the National Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM) is activating its “winter plan” for the second consecutive year. Different measures will be taken so that everyone can be treated.
To face this winter, the National Medicines Safety Agency prepared it this summer, since since July, to order boxes of amoxicillin, pharmacies have had to go through wholesale distributors.
Stop exports to help patients find their treatment
Intermediaries between laboratories and the 22,000 pharmacies who allow better distribution of medicines across the territory. A solution that works, stocks of this antibiotic are satisfactory at the start of autumn.
Reinforced stock monitoring is also planned for 13 molecules in total, including paracetamol, corticosteroids and the antibiotic azithromycin. Something new for this winter due to the whooping cough epidemic, explains Pierre-Olivier Farenq, director of the ANSM risk situations support center: “We have been facing a whooping cough epidemic for several months now. The first measures put in place at the ANSM level are to stop exports, so that the patient does not ultimately have to go to more pharmacies to get their treatment.
Thanks to all these measures taken upstream, the medicine policeman hopes to avoid the shortages that we experienced last winter.
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