Anyone who has needed a doctor in recent times already knows it: many medicines are no longer available in Italian pharmacies. This is what has been highlighted by consumers who point out that about three thousand drugs are missing: anti-inflammatories, especially ibuprofen which, among other things, is the drug indicated in the early stages of Covid19 infection, antibiotics for pediatric use, antipyretics, and drugs for cardiovascular diseases, particularly those for the treatment of hypertension. The alarm was raised by Farmindustria which speaks of an evident difficulty and also invests medicines for hospital use.
In many cases there is an alternative which is represented by equivalent generic medicines. This is the case, for example, of tachipirina which some pharmacies make on their own. This applies, for example, to the one in syrup, designed for the little ones. “This shortage could be a good opportunity to increase the consumption of equivalent drugs because in many cases it is not the active ingredient but the designer drug that is missing – explains the president of Consumerismo No Profit, Luigi Gabriele – Italians are in the last places in Europe for the consumption of equivalent medicines, spending around one and a half billion euros out of pocket for the purchase of “designer” medicines. The pandemic should have taught us that globalization does not work in the presence of a health emergency and that the production of these life-saving drugs cannot and must not be relocated”. For the consumer association, «the companies that produced the active ingredients in Europe and Italy have either been closed or have been relocated. The PNRR should also deal with these matters: we all rightly speak of energy self-sufficiency as if health self-sufficiency were a negligible problem».
The alarm of these days does not concern only Italy. Even in other European countries, such as Germany, some medicines are currently unavailable. The global situation, the Covid restrictions in China and the difficulties in logistics are causing problems even for the best equipped pharmacies.