Both patients and healthcare professionals have been concerned for several years about drug shortages which are weakening the healthcare system. All product categories are affected, and supply disruptions have continued to worsen since the massive relocation of the pharmaceutical industry in the 2000s. Today, China and India produce 80% of the active ingredients of our medications.
After a first major shortage, at the start of the Covid-19 epidemic in 2020, this winter’s triple epidemic – Covid, flu and bronchiolitis – again put the pharmaceutical sector under stress, to the point that certain pharmacies French women had to prepare capsules themselves. What are the consequences of these ruptures for patients? What are the short term solutions? Have the relocations announced by Emmanuel Macron in 2020 begun to bear fruit?
In this episode of the “L’Heure du Monde” podcast, journalists Zeliha Chaffin, who carried out an investigation into the current situation, and Chloé Hecketsweiler, who had followed the first major shortage crisis at the start of the Covid pandemic. -19, explain why it is not so easy to produce drugs in France.
An episode of Garance Muñoz. Directed by: Florentin Baume. Presentation and editor-in-chief: Jean-Guillaume Santi. In this episode: extract from the 1 p.m. news from France 2, March 18, 2020; excerpt from a speech by Emmanuel Macron, June 16, 2020.
“The Hour of the World”
“L’Heure du Monde” is the daily news podcast of the Monde. Listen every day, from 6 a.m., to a new episode, on Lemonde.fr or on Spotify. Find all the episodes here.
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Also listen In China, the worrying outbreak of the Covid-19 epidemic
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