For several months, France has been facing a risk of shortages of several drugs. Paracetamol, amoxicillin… the situation keeps getting worse and worry health professionals. According to Pierre-Olivier Variot, president of the Union of Community Pharmacists (USPO), nearly 3,000 molecules were out of stock at the start of the year.
However, François Braun, the Minister of Health, tried to reassure BFMTV this Monday, April 3, 2023. “We have a real problem with all the medicines but there is no shortage. There are no medicines in absolute rupture, but in tension”, confides the Ministry of Health.
The government is currently working on the implementation of a major plan aimed at combating these tensions. One of the first steps is the creation of a list of the most important drugs.
Drugs: putting in addition to a list with the most important for the population
As the Minister of Health explained to BFMTV: “We must determine which are the essential drugs, critical drugs, those that no one can do without“. François Braun specified: “We are in the process of finalizing this list for the month of May with all the medical specialties”.
This list ofessential drugs“, will aim to identify precisely their origin of manufacture (from the first stage with the active ingredient to the last at the time of marketing). Thanks to this, the government wishes “repatriate the production of the active ingredients of these essential drugs with France and the EU“.
While waiting for the list from the French government, the World Health Organization (WHO) already has its own list with all the drugs deemed essential. “More than 150 countries currently use the WHO list to determine which drugs best correspond to the contexts and health priorities that are theirs”, specifies the international organization. Medisite presents the drugs on this list, which could inspire France for its own.