Child drug shortages worry pharmacists, consumers

As Canada braces for flue season, a shortage of over-the-counter medication for children is leaving pharmacy shelves bare and parents, worried.

The chief pharmacist officer at the Canadian Pharmacists Association (CPhA) says the current problem has as much to do with increased demand, as with more people now catching cold viruses and with flu season ramping up – but Gabriella Lopez isn’t buying it.

“When you saw your child was in pain, but you don’t find noting to heel him that was actually a very scary situation; I’m thinking how many other parents are in this situation right now,” said Lopez, a mother of three children. “I saw my three-year-old son was suffering from pain and fever when he fell ill, my husband went to a couple of different local pharmacies and was unable to find kids liquid Advil and Tylenol. This is a very scary situation for us because we know the pain of our child, but we don’t know how to help him without cold and pain medicines, I’m crying whole night and pray to God for my son,” Lopez said.

“I started asking friends and family to help by searching stores and purchasing what they can find, and Some families have resorted to buying medicine outside Canada. “I hate feeling helpless, because I did not see my child in pain” so my husband ended up buying some adult meditation because there is no option left” Lopez said. “Firstly, we try a lot to find pain and fever medicine but because of medicine shortage, we unable to find anything and I wanted to do something immediately for my child because he was in pain and crying continually so, I mixed a little quantity of adult meditation in apple syrup and gave it to my son and thankfully it works Lopez said.

The situation is so dire, the Ontario Pharmacists Association raised the issue of Canadian-wide shortages of cold and flu medications and warned infant and toddler pain and fever drugs, like liquid Children’s Tylenol, are hard to come by due to high demand and supply chain problems.

The Toronto Hospital for Sick Children also sent a letter to patients and caregivers warning them of probable difficulties in obtaining liquid acetaminophen and ibuprofen due to the shortages. Some parents have been forced to fly to the United States to acquire vital prescriptions for their kids, while others are being gouged by people selling some of these products online for inflated prices, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said.

“It is getting more difficult to fill prescriptions for the children’s formulation, and some manufacturers claim they won’t be able to do so until January 2023,” said Patrick Brown, a clinical pharmacist in Windsor. “The demand increased by more than 300% in August, which is significantly more than the typical trend of consumption. Demand, not supply, is what is causing the issue. Therefore, manufacturers are increasing their output by roughly 35%, which is a record level, but their factories only have so much capacity to accommodate the production line.”

“We estimate that the numbers will rise over the coming months. We certainly predict this winter to be extremely busy,” said Roger Morgan, a Toronto area physician. “We advise parents to speak with their neighbourhood pharmacist because they might be able to compound adult-use medications into paediatric formulations.”

Morgan said the pharmacist can also discuss other options that may be available to them at that pharmacy. Parents and pharmacists claim they are doing their best to address supply concerns in the face of a shortage of children’s Advil and Tylenol. As a result, one such mechanism is to keep the products behind the counter. This reduces the number of customers per bottle of liquid formulation, package, or chewable, and encourages parents to visit the pharmacist.”

According to Health Canada, some pharmacies and hospitals across Canada are temporarily out of children paracetamol and ibuprofen drugs. Since the summer, there has been an unusually high demand for these products, which has limited supply.

In October, a public advisory was released. Hospitals all around the nation are receiving goods that are imported from the US and Australia.
The federal government announced that more than 1 million bottles of children’s pain relievers will arrive in Canada next week as a result of drug shortages that have been troubling the country.