Swiss government concerned about drugs scarcity

Pharmacies have been warning about shortages for some months. Keystone / Peter Schneider

Authorities have created a taskforce to deal with what they call “problematic” shortages of medicine in the country.

Supply problems have worsened even further over the past weeks, and are now also having an impact on outpatient services, the government said on Wednesday.

+ Not just medicines: doctors are also lacking in Switzerland

This differentiates the current shortages from those seen in previous years, which mostly hit hospitals; this time, medicines taken orally – for example the painkillers paracetamol and ibuprofen, especially in syrup form for children – are affected.

Pharmacies already voiced fears of shortages some months ago.

Methadone tablets are also scarce at the moment, due to a licencing spat involving Swiss drugs regulator Swissmedic and an important drugs producer.

The taskforce will concentrate mainly on short-term measures to ease the situation quickly, the authorities said. In the longer term, the goal is to be able to detect supply bottlenecks further in advance and regulate the market accordingly.

The current global shortage of antibiotics has been driven by the coronavirus pandemic and lockdowns in China, the government said. The strong wave of flu-like infections in Switzerland in recent weeks hasn’t helped either.