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Dr Gérald Kierzek (Medical Director of Doctissimo)
Like last year, amoxicillin is starting to run out of pharmacies. According to the National Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM), the antibiotic would be the subject of “strong tensions” or even “stock shortages”.
The Union of Community Pharmacists’ Unions had sounded the alarm but that was not enough: amoxicillin is once again under pressure in pharmacies, with stock shortages in certain places.
A situation that continues to deteriorate
The National Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM) even recognizes that “the situation could deteriorate” in the columns of Le Parisien. She specifies that “the most impacted forms are oral suspensions in bottles, which are mainly prescribed in towns for children“.
Generally speaking, stocks available to pharmacies are low, around three days. Among wholesalers, according to data from the health organization’s winter monitoring plan for drug tensions published by the ANSM (updated on December 13), the advance would also be three days of stock, for the drinkable form in 500 mg/5 ml and 250 mg/5 ml versions. Finally, nationally, two thirds of pharmacies were out of stock on December 8.
Forms for adults also out of stock
Oral forms, intended for children, are not the only ones being undermined. Amoxicillin in oral form 1000 mg (Clamoxyl and generics) and specialties combining amoxicillin and clavulanic acid, better known under the name Augmentin (and generic) in oral form 500 mg/62.5 mg and 100 mg/12, 5 mg are also in tension.
Remember that amoxicillin is an antibiotic used in the treatment of infectious diseases of bacterial origin and that it is of no use against viruses. Common sense rules forgotten by some doctors, according to Dr. Gérald Kierzek, emergency physician and medical director of Doctissimo. “We are in France facing a problem of relocalization of the production of antibiotics, but also facing an overprescription of antibiotics by certain doctors” indicates the expert. “This misuse leads to difficulty in managing stocks, on the one hand, but also to problems of antibiotic resistance and recurrent infections, among people who take them irrationally.