Australians patients are being urged to stop panic buying as 600 medicines are in short supply

Doctors, panic buying by consumers and public hospitals are being blamed for current medicine, vaccine and vital cancer treatment shortages. See which ones are on the list.

• The Aussie restrictions that could be lifted first
• How Aussie drones could stop COVID-19 spreading

Exclusive: Nearly 600 medicines, vaccines and vital cancer treatments are in short supply — 75 of them in critical supply — exacerbated by COVID-19 panic-buying.

News Corp can reveal the shortages, which existed before the coronavirus emerged, have grown by 33 per cent in the last month alone.

Doctors are being blamed for fuelling the current crisis by bending the rules to write special “Regulation 49” prescriptions that allowed patients to stockpile six months or more worth of medicine.

This added to already-depleted stocks, brought about by a reduction in factory output in China and India and freight delays.

Australians are now being urged to go back to buying their regular monthly supply of medicine to help ease the crisis.

An industry analysis shows there was a 25-40 per cent increase in demand for some medicines in March, as patients horded certain drugs.

The number of scripts written for respiratory medicine doubled from under 200,000 to just over 400,000 in April, industry newsletter BioPharmaDispatch reported.

Pharmaceutical companies report that hospitals added to the crisis by putting in orders 600 per cent higher than normal as they sought to stockpile drugs ahead of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Some hospitals now have a years’ supply of some drugs while other can’t obtain them.

Pharmaceutical companies wrote to federal health minister Greg Hunt and State and Territory ministers this week to ask for support from the National Cabinet in managing unprecedented orders for hospital medicines by public hospitals.

The nation’s medicines watchdog lists 588 medicines in short supply, with 75 in critical shortage.

Doctors allowed patients to stockpile a six months supply of medicines. Picture: Getty

Those in short supply include Ventolin, chemotherapies for common cancers, breast cancer medicine tamoxifen, diabetes medicine agripressin, eight brands of medicine for underactive thyroid, blood pressure treatments, anti-depressants, medicines used for epidurals in childbirth, epipens for anaphylaxis, multiple antibiotics even a rabies vaccine.

Disturbingly there is a shortage of suxamethonium — a medicine used by doctors who need to place a COVID-19 patient under ventilation.

The medicines industry says while some particular brands or dosages of medicines are in short supply it did not mean patients could not find other brands or doses to treat their condition.

“It is a great concern to hear reports of patients being unable to access their brands of medicines during these very difficult times,” Medicines Australia chief Elizabeth de Somer and Generic and Biosimilar Medicines Association chief Marnie Peterson said in a joint statement.

“We are actively collaborating to do everything we can to support medicines supplies – and we are working around the clock to identify, manage and mitigate potential shortages.”

Patients should check whether other pharmacies have supplies or ask their doctor for help, they said.

The government and the medicine industry are working overtime to fix the problem.

The government has arranged planes that can transport medicines into Australia from overseas.

On its website, the medicines regulator the Therapeutic Goods Administration said: “there have been temporary local-level disruptions to supply for some medicines driven by increased demand through excessive purchasing (panic buying and stockpiling)”.

“Widespread national-level medicine shortages due to COVID-19 are not currently anticipated, but could occur if excessive purchasing continues.”

The Pharmacy Guild of Australia says it is very concerned about medicines shortages and said it had been the top topic of conversation in pharmacy forums for “quite a while”.

The Guild will survey its members over coming days to try and understand whether the shortages are being caused by wholesalers or the medicines manufacturers.

Chemist Warehouse chief Mario Tascone said medicine supplies had been a problem for a long time before COVID-19 but supplies had improved in the last few weeks because virtually no-one was shopping due to the lockdown.

“We have enough to service our stores,” he said.

Australian Medical Associatio president Dr Tony Bartone said: “the AMA has been assisting medication practitioners in their conversations with patients since early March, to help them explain that under “Regulation 49”, only under certain circumstances can a patient access multiple repeat.”

Almost 600 medicines are now in short supply.

The National Pharmaceutical Services Association, which represents wholesalers who supply local chemists, said: “there are shortages of certain medicines but this has begun to improve.”

It said the biggest shortages were for asthma inhalers and malaria drug hydroxychloroquine which is part of a major COVID-19 treatment trial in Australia

Other factors driving the shortage include a slow down in the production of medicines in factories in India and China due to COVID-19 lockdowns.

Seventy per cent of Australia’s most commonly used medicines are produced in India which last month banned exports of 26 key medicines including paracetamol.

That ban was partially lifted earlier this month but many of the pharmaceutical factories in India were running at just 50 per cent capacity after workers were forced back to their home towns as part of COVID-19 containment strategies.

In a further complication eighty per cent of the raw ingredients needed for medicines manufacturing are made in China and many factories were closed at the height of its COVID-219 outbreak.

Originally published as Australians patients are being urged to stop panic buying as 600 medicines are in short supply