Medicine shortages a real pain as flu cases skyrocket

Social Affairs

Published: 05 Jun. 2023, 15:58 Updated: 05 Jun. 2023, 16:51

Medicine shortages a real pain as flu cases skyrocket

Sick children and their parents wait to see a doctor at Woorisoa Hospital in Seongbuk District, central Seoul on April 5. [WOORISOA HOSPITAL]

A record number of Koreans are suffering from flu despite the country being in the grip of early summer weather.

Children, in particular, are suffering flu symptoms while parents struggle to find fever reducers amid recent shortages. Some of these medicines were pulled from shelves due to safety concerns.

The number of patients with suspected flu symptoms reached 25.7 per 1,000 outpatients in the fourth week of May, the same figure as the previous week, according to the Korean Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).

The figure is abnormally high considering that the number during the same period was between 1.7 and 7.0 over the past four years.

It also surpasses the number of patients the agency set as the standard for a flu epidemic, which is 4.9.

Usually, the flu begins around late fall and ends by spring, but this year, the epidemic is continuing through early summer.

By age group, 52.8 out of 100,000 patients in elementary school between the ages of seven and 12 suffered from the flu in the fourth week of May, as did 49.5 out of 100,000 patients in middle and high school between the ages of 13 and 18.

In contrast, only 27.8 out of 100,000 patients between the ages of 19 and 49 suffered from the flu, while only 26.4 out of 100,000 patients between the ages of one and six suffered from the illness.

Patients wait to see a doctor at a hospital in downtown Seoul on April 21. [YONHAP]

The shortage of fever-reducing medicine for children has become especially serious as more and more children come down with the flu.

Some over-the-counter acetaminophen fever reducers have been banned from production and sale.

Fever-reducing medicines from Dong-A Pharmaceutical and Daewon Pharmaceutical, which account for over 90 percent of the market share, were banned for manufacturing and sale as browning occurred in the former and a phase separation in the latter.

Browning is the discoloring of a medication, often when it is exposed to excessive heat. Phase separating refers to when the syrup and powder separate, which could result in patients ingesting the medication in differing concentrations of pharmaceutical ingredients.

“I wanted to buy a fever reducer in a pharmacy nearby because my child had a high fever late at night, but I had to purchase a powder-type medicine instead of a syrup-type as the pharmacy ran out of such medicine,” said a parent of a daughter in her first year of elementary school.

“The pharmacy also limited the number of those products sold per person because even those medicines were hard to find.

“I am concerned that the shortage will continue since fever reducers are one of the must-have medicines always stocked at home.”

Pharmacists say increasing supply is essential to resolve the issue.

“Syrup-type medicine with acetaminophen is not in stock [at our pharmacy],” said a pharmacist in Gyeonggi.

“Patients are going around pharmacies to purchase them but increasing supply is necessary since patients with flu are rising rapidly.”

The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety held a meeting with different manufacturers of fever reducers last Friday to monitor the status of the supply and production of such medicines.

On the same day, Telcon RF Pharmaceutical announced it will increase the manufacturing of syrup-type fever reducers based on acetaminophen.

However, medical professionals point out that the supply issue applies to more than just fever reducers.

“People are looking for alternative medicines because there are not a lot of medicines we can find, including cough medicine for children and bronchodilators,” said Jung Seong-kwan, a pediatrician at Woorisoa Children’s Hospital.

BY YI WOO-LIM [cho.jungwoo1@joongang.co.kr]