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The epidemic is spreading and reports of drug shortages in Taiwan have skyrocketed. Five drugs will be recalled from Taiwan, including antiviral drugs to lower blood pressure and AIDS; some will be withdrawn due to price considerations and others due to supply factors. The Food and Drug Administration emphasized that the five drugs have alternative drugs, which do not affect the rights of patients.
▲ Five drugs will leave Taiwan by the end of the year. (Schematic / Obtained from Pixabay)
According to the statistics of the drug shortage notification platform of the Food and Drug Administration of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, there were about 14 drug shortage notifications in 2016, about 6 in 2017, about 13 in 2018, around 28 in 2019 and only from January to October in 2020. This increased to more than 128 cases, more than 4.5 times more than last year.
At the time of the surge in drug shortage notifications, five drugs are expected to be withdrawn from the Taiwan market from the end of this year to the middle of next year, including the high blood pressure drug “Jiecirui 10g” and the ” Medicine to keep smallpox 10g “. , Glaucoma drug “Lishi Instant Eye Drop”, AIDS antiviral drug “Noviya 100mg film-coated tablets” and “Bikechuan 200MCG / DOSE dry powder inhaler” for the treatment of allergic rhinitis.
Among the 5 drugs, 2 drugs for lowering blood pressure have the most. According to statistics from the National Health Insurance Agency, the consumption of these 2 drugs by health insurance last year was 4.3 million, and the antiviral drug against AIDS used 170,000 drugs to treat allergies. There are 2921 medications for rhinitis and 338 medications for glaucoma.
The Food and Drug Administration noted that the five drugs were withdrawn from Taiwan for different reasons, but they all have alternative drugs, which do not affect people’s rights. Among them, Bikechuan dry powder inhaler decided to stop exporting to Taiwan in January next year due to price factors, while Lishi Instant Eyedrops is due to the Japanese manufacturer withdrawing this product from the Taiwan market and is expected to be supply until July next year.
AstraZeneca stated that Jieci Rui Tablets and Proxinning Continuous Medicinal Tablets were withdrawn from Taiwan due to factors such as the transfer of sales rights and the management of drug certificates, and they were not sure about the future supply situation; AbbVie Pharmaceuticals said that Nuoyi Sub-film coated tablets cannot be used alone and must be combined with other drugs. For this reason, in recent years priority has been given to the compound three in one or four in one. Without affecting the rights and interests of patients, it has been decided to stop selling.
In an interview, Wang Zongdao, treating physician at the Department of Internal Medicine at National Taiwan University Hospital and president of the Taiwan Hypertension Society, said that the two antihypertensive drugs that were withdrawn from Taiwan at the end of the year are old drugs that have existed for more than 20 years. The effects of generic drugs are also quite good. Also, blood pressure lowering medications are different from those used for mental illness and have relatively little psychological impact on patients.
Wang Zongdao believes that it is more important for hypertensive patients to understand their blood pressure than the problem of bandage changes, especially if the weather turns cold, be sure to do “722” (homonym “please measure”) at home to measure blood pressure 2 weeks after dressing change. Except that it should be measured for 7 consecutive days, it should be measured once every morning after getting up and before going to bed at night, with an interval of 1 minute between the two hours, and then taking the average value. Because people are more relaxed at home, the standard for measuring blood pressure at home is 135 mmHg. , Diastolic blood pressure 85 mmHg.
Chang Hongchuan, deputy spokesperson of the National Federation of Pharmacists Associations and director of the Department of Pharmaceutical Affairs Management at Zhenxing Hospital, said that these five drugs have the same ingredients and the same pharmacological drugs or new drugs with better efficacy to replace them, but the same drug is used for a long time. Patients older than, when they first discovered that medicine looks different from the past, may indeed feel a little fear in their heart and be wary of unfamiliar medicines, but at least there are medicines available, which is not a big problem.
The National Health Insurance has lowered the price of drugs in line with international prices year after year. “A drug is cheaper than candy” has been repeatedly criticized, but Chang Hongchuan presents a different opinion. He said that once the original drug has passed the patent period, there will be generic drugs with the same ingredients. In the face of competition and other considerations, the original drug may be withdrawn from Taiwan, but if there are good quality generic drugs with higher efficacy There are new drugs available, and it is not necessarily a bad thing for old drugs to be withdrawn from Taiwan. Also, some drugs are not necessarily recalled from Taiwan because the price of health insurance is not good. The agent and the original manufacturer cannot agree with each other.
In his opinion, many old drugs are out of date and must be “metabolized” before new blood can be added. For example, when many old diabetes drugs were first introduced decades ago, they were actually very effective drugs, but with the development of drugs, more new drugs have appeared with good curative effects and fewer side effects. Old drugs are no longer the first line of treatment guidelines. Naturally, they face the fate of elimination. “Why not let old drugs go away and allow patients to use new drugs?”
Compared with the recall of old Taiwan drugs, Xinghui’s large collection of drugs bothered pharmacists. Chang Hong said that many older patients took prescriptions from the hospital two or three years ago and asked for a change in medication, which left pharmacists dumbfounded. It is emphasized that if a new drug has just been added to Taiwan, it is obviously better than the old drug and is also in line with the current trend of treatment, but suddenly announces its withdrawal from Taiwan, this problem should be more worthy of attention in all areas of life.
