Medical professionals in Germany warned on Friday that delivery problems have led to a shortage of important medications and called for production to be brought back to Germany.
“Supply bottlenecks are increasingly causing grave problems, including in hospitals,” the head of the German Hospital Federation (DKG), Gerald Gaß told the Funke media group.
The situation is particularly serious for antibiotics, cancer drugs and emergency medication for heart attacks and strokes.
“We now have to start looking at bringing everything back. Maybe we also have to discuss the need for homegrown production capacities for essential medication on a national level,” Christian Karagiannidis, a member of the government committee for hospital care, told public broadcaster ZDF on Friday.
This comes amid an early and unusually heavy wave of cold and flu-like illnesses in Germany, leading to unsually high demand for over-the-counter medication, and staff shortages at pharmacies and medical facilities.
Why is Germany facing medication shortages?
Production of key drugs — especially cheaper ones where patents have long expired such as ibuprofen and cough syrups — was shifted to cheaper locations such as China and India over the past decade, but some of these have seen major production or delivery issues.
The production capacity is also not large enough to meet the growing demand for certain medications. Most recently, hospitals have warned that they are facing shortages of medications for children such as fever and cough syrups.
www.dw.com/en/german-hospitals-warn-of-medication-shortages/a-64128381