The availability of crucial medicines to treat strep A has deteriorated during the past week, according to pharmacists.
The Association of Independent Multiple Pharmacies (AIMP) deemed the situation to be “unacceptable” and urged the government to implement a solution.
Four antibiotics used to treat various illnesses have been added to a list of items that the United Kingdom cannot export.
The British government says it is urgently working with manufacturers and distributors to expedite deliveries.
Leyla Hannbeck, chief executive of the AIMP, which represents 4,000 pharmacies in the United Kingdom, stated that the availability of antibiotics to treat bacterial diseases such as strep A and scarlet fever was “extremely inadequate.”
She stated that the issue had been identified a week earlier, but it was now worsening, making it extremely difficult to obtain medication.
“People are forced to visit many pharmacies – it’s chaos,” she remarked.
Supplies are not reaching us, and it appears that no one cares.
The addition of four antibiotics, three of which are standard treatments for strep A, to the UK’s export-prohibited list due to strong demand, according to Dr. Hannbeck, was “too little, too late.”
Amoxicillin, phenoxymethylpenicillin (penicillin V), azithromycin oral suspension, and cefalexin are used to treat a wide variety of bacterial infections, including those of the throat, chest, and skin.
Her message to anxious parents is that pharmacists are working arduously to develop alternatives and are also shifting formulations from tablets to liquids.
Dr. Hannbeck explains, however, that even the options are dwindling.
Antibiotics to treat strep A are already accessible from manufacturers, according to a Department of Health and Social Care representative.
“We continue to work immediately with manufacturers and distributors to accelerate deliveries, move forward stock to ensure it gets to where it’s needed, and increase supplies to meet demand as rapidly as possible, and to enable access to these essential medicines.”
Pediatricians have been instructed to provide medicines to children with growing signs of strep A, a bacterial infection that can cause scarlet fever and, very rarely, an invasive infection called iGAS that can be fatal.
Strep A infections typically develop in the winter and peak in the spring, but this year cases are rising earlier than usual – likely because the pandemic has altered the normal infection cycle.
According to the UK Health Security Agency, 15 children in the UK have died from severe iGAS infections since September. In England, 45 adults have died from the same illness within the same period, according to the data.
This is the highest number of deaths associated with invasive strep A since the winter of 2017-18 when 27 children and 328 adults perished.
The Healthcare Distribution Association (HDA), which represents medicine distributors, reported that more antibiotics were being sent to warehouses and will reach pharmacies in the coming days.
Martin Sawer, executive director of the HDA, reported that a national distributor informed him that the demand for medications had increased by 400 to 500 percent since December of last year.
“We are prioritizing all antibiotics, especially liquid solutions, due to their high demand,” he stated.
In addition, pharmacists are being charged up to £19 for a box of medications that would often cost a few pounds, due to a substantial increase in strep A-related charges.
As a result, they claim they are losing thousands of pounds every week because the NHS reimburses only a fraction of the cost of the drugs.
The Competition and Markets Authority is now investigating antibiotic pricing by pharmaceutical companies.
