There is great concern

Acute shortage: 540 medicines not available!

Pharmacies try to bridge the shortages of "standard medicines" with alternative products.

(Bild: Andreas Tröster)

540 medicines are currently unavailable in our country - the concern is great. Even if this "only" affects a fraction of all medicines. In any case, doctors advise against self-dosing if a medicine is missing. This is life-threatening. 

At the end of September, "Krone" warned for the first time about supply bottlenecks for medicines (see facsimile below).

At the end of September, "Krone" warned for the first time about supply bottlenecks for medicines

(Bild: Screenshot/Krone)

Citizens are feeling the pinch
And the situation in Austria's pharmacies has not improved since then - quite the opposite: at the beginning of January, the Ministry of Health publicly announced on its website that around 540 medicines in the country are currently not available at all or only to a very limited extent. Many people have experienced this first-hand on their way to the pharmacy in recent weeks.

Experts seek reassurance
However, experts are trying to calm the general concern. And they are doing so on the basis of bare figures: Because according to these, the current supply bottleneck "only" affects around three percent of all around 15,000 medicines licensed in Austria. According to doctors, there are currently "only" shortages of cortisone substances and some types of antibiotics (especially penicillin).

(Bild: BMF/ZAÖ)

The main reasons for the shortages: higher demand for certain medicines than in the coronavirus lockdown years, problems in obtaining active ingredients due to political developments (e.g. export bans) or supply bottlenecks for packaging materials.

As there are not enough production facilities for antibiotics in Europe, we were surprised by the situation in China. There is a need to catch up!

Virologe Prof. Dr. Norbert Nowotny

Strong wave of infections in the coming weeks
In domestic hospitals, there is (still) no cause for concern in this respect - but for doctors in private practice and for the treatment of actually harmless infectious diseases, things could become more problematic in the near future. Even if the current medication situation is "stable" according to the Ministry of Health, neutral experts agree that it is impossible to predict how the situation will develop in the coming weeks and months due to the current strong wave of infections in the country.

(Bild: Fotowerk)

Virologist Prof. Norbert Nowotny is also relatively critical of the current shortages of antibiotics in pharmacies. As pharmacists always have to order the medicines for a whole year in advance, too little care has apparently been taken to stock antibiotics due to the coronavirus crisis.

No self-dosing!
What should you do if you no longer have your usual medication at home? For example, paracetamol and ibuprofen fever syrups when children have a fever. Sometimes you read in forums and social media that you could simply halve tablets or suppositories with the same active ingredient but a higher dosage for children. Self-dosing is strongly discouraged. "Mixing your own medication at the kitchen table is life-threatening. I strongly advise everyone not to do this," says Dr. Peter Voitl, a paediatrician in Vienna-Donaustadt.

Mixing your own medication at the kitchen table is life-threatening. I strongly advise everyone against it.

Dr. Peter Voitl, Kinderarzt in Wien-Donaustadt

And he adds: "Tablets have a film to protect them from stomach acid. Split tablets are simply digested and don't work. In addition, active ingredients are not always evenly distributed in preparations. This can lead to an overdose. In many cases, pharmacies can offer alternative preparations or process existing ones so that they are suitable for children," explains Voitl.