New problem of shortage of medicines in Italy, where above all amoxicillin, the drug most used to treat scarlet fever, bronchitis and ear infections in children, is lacking: the alarm has been sounded by various associations of paediatricians.
Pediatricians warn: Amoxicillin is lacking in Italy
The Cultural Association pediatricianswith the support of the Italian Society of Pediatrics and the Italian Federation of Doctors wrote a letter addressed to Giorgio Palù and Anna Maria Marra, respectively president and deputy director general of Aifa, the Italian Medicines Agency, to ask for a solution to this problem .
“Since November 2022, the shortage of Amoxicillin, a first aid drug for children, has persisted and has worsened – reads the letter – If starting from 2021 the shortage concerned some formulations for hospital use, as also recognized by Aifa, for some months the shortage at the territorial level has concerned all formulations of Amoxicillin, as a cyclical phenomenon in some situations, chronic in others. This is a serious and serious problem, and not only for the primary care pediatric activity”.
The various associations have stressed that theAmoxicillin it is an antibiotic that represents “the first choice for all the most common infectious pathologies, as also indicated by the World Health Organization and by all relevant international guidelines. This is because it is low cost, effective and well tolerated, has low risks of adverse effects and above all contributes to the control of antibiotic resistance, of which Italy has the sad record in Europe, together with Spain. Resistance to antibiotics, we recall, is environmental and not individual: the risk is not only for the single individual, but for the whole community”.
Amoxicillin deficiency: the causes
What are the cause that led to the shortage of Amoxicillin in Italy? There are several factors that may have led to this lack, starting with its low price which does not encourage the pharmaceutical industry to produce it: this hypothesis is the most popular among paediatricians’ associations.
The EMA, on the other hand, espouses another line of thought: according to the European Medicines Agency, in fact, the shortage of Amoxicillin is due to the peak of respiratory infections which during last winter caused the demand for antibiotics to rapidly rise, making this medicine increasingly unobtainable on the shelves of Italian pharmacies.
The alternatives to Amoxicillin and the risks
Pediatricians, in asking for concrete help so that the lack of Amoxicillin can be remedied, are also concerned about the risks deriving from the prescriptions of therapeutic alternatives which in some cases can be risky and cause adverse effects and reactions.
For the treatment of pharyngotonsillitis from Sbea, otitis media and bacterial pneumonia, target infections for the use of Amoxicillin, pediatricians warn that “each therapeutic alternative represents an inappropriate choice”.
Like Amoxicillin, there are currently several other drugs that are “untraceable” in Italy: the list is updated by the Italian Medicines Agency which constantly publishes the list of medicines lacking in our country. The summer of 2022, for example, was marked by a severe shortage of a medicine, Nurofen, later replaced with ibuprofen-based galenic preparations.