The health minister sees no problem

In the European Union, shortages, shortages and reduced availability of drugs are a real problem. The reasons for a drug shortage are manifold: production interruptions due to lack of active ingredients that come from China and India (around 80 percent), increased demand, supply chain collapse compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic. In Poland, the minister of health does not see the problem and claims that possible shortages of drugs in pharmacies may result from pharmacists not ordering them.

Pharmaceutical company Teva is the largest producer of generics in the world. It produces about 3,600 drugs. Almost 200 million people in 60 countries use the company's drugs every day. The president and CEO of Teva announced that "there are serious problems with maintaining the continuity of production. This applies to several percent of the drugs produced, so there will be a shortage of them."

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) on May 13, 2022, published guidelines for patients and healthcare professionals on the prevention of drug shortages. On 15 July, the EMA published a communication: "Towards better prevention of drug shortages in the EU".

In Germany, the Federal Institute of Medicines and Medical Devices reports that more than 250 drugs are currently affected by a supply problem, including painkillers, anti-cancer and anti-depressants.

At the meeting of the Parliamentary Health Committee on July 6, 2022, Andrzej Stachnik, president of the board of the Union of Employers of Pharmaceutical Wholesalers, announced that in Poland 10 wholesalers supplying pharmacies and hospitals account for 93 percent of the market. He said that there are currently problems with the availability of dozens of drugs, e.g. anti-diabetic and anti-coagulant drugs. He stressed that the situation is really serious because pharmaceutical wholesalers suffer huge losses on the distribution of reimbursed drugs.

In Poland, the Integrated Monitoring System for Trade in Medicinal Products (ZSMOPL) has been operating in Poland since April 2019, which enables monitoring at the retail and wholesale level of drug trade and providing this information to the competent authorities: the Ministry of Health, the Main Pharmaceutical Inspectorate.

In July 2019, the Team for preventing shortages in the availability of medicinal products was created. The tasks of the Team include data analysis and preparation of recommendations that should be undertaken in order to counteract the lack of availability of medicinal products. What exactly did the team do? It is not known because no information has been published despite the fact that the recommendations were to be prepared for various authorities.

The Minister of Health has data contained in ZSMOPL, receives weekly reports from the Main Pharmaceutical Inspector, has been informed about serious problems in pharmaceutical wholesalers, has a team for counteracting shortages of drugs at his disposal. And what? And the egg. The Minister of Health claims that there is no problem with the lack of drugs in Poland.

MA farm. Walenty Zajdel