Flu medication is out of stock in Alicante pharmacies

During the first two weeks of December, reports of pharmacies running out of flu medicine had gone up four times. Tamiflu is the antiviral medicine that has been most affected by this respiratory infection. About 90% of the situations where pharmacists have said they don’t have enough of this treatment are because of the extremely contagious K strain of influenza A.

Oseltamivir is a neuraminidase inhibitor that is found in Tamiflu. These drugs stop the flu virus from spreading in the body and are used to treat and stop the symptoms of the flu virus infection. It can be utilised by adults, teens, kids, and babies, even newborns.

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Capsules

The drugs and Pharmaceutical Products Agency’s list of missing drugs says that there aren’t enough hard capsules of this drug, and they won’t be available until April 2026. So, units have been given permission to be marketed in a special way, with labels in a language other than Spanish for hospitals and in Spanish for distribution to distribution businesses.

The same thing is happening across the country, with shortages going up eight times. Luda Partners, a digital medicine search engine that chemists use to identify out-of-stock prescriptions at other community pharmacies, says that this group is the most affected, more than antibacterials, antidepressants, and antithrombotics.

The Spanish Consumers’ Association is upset that the healthcare system isn’t ready for a possible collapse because of the virus, and they are urging for steps to be taken to avoid a bad situation over Christmas. The group is asking for immunisations for everyone and for the government to hire more healthcare workers during the Christmas season to prevent being short-staffed.

“The flu causes problems in care every year, both in health centres and in hospital emergencies. However, the start of the flu season has been moved up by almost a month, and a health collapse is happening in some areas. The situation may get worse in the coming weeks, as the peak is expected to happen around Christmas,” the organisation says.

At the same time, they are asking the government to hire people to fill in for healthcare personnel who are on vacation. “If this doesn’t happen, the current collapse could lead to a healthcare crisis where no one cares.”

Reasons

Miguel Ángel Ruiz, a representative for consumers, says that there are various reasons for this. “On the one hand, there was a lack of foresight in moving up the vaccine schedule and a lack of speed in doing so without immunising the entire at-risk population. On the other side, the fact that health recommendations are not made quickly and are only shared when there is already a lot of illness in the population. There aren’t enough healthcare workers, and people have to wait a long period for appointments at health centres.

Author: Derek Appleton