Shortage of d***s looms as China and India act on Corona
George Kebaso @Morarak
Kenya could be staring at a major drug shortage in the next few months after two of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical manufacturing countries scaled down production as the coronavirus outbreak continues to spread across the globe.
Sounding the warning yesterday, the Kenya Pharmaceutical Distributors Association (KPDA) chairman Murichu Wa Kamamia said the shortage could get worse if Kenya does not explore importation of drugs from non-traditional sources in Europe and elsewhere.
Speaking at the Pharmacy and Poisons Board (PPB) headquarters in Nairobi where the board announced 10 key measures to boost the country’s preparedness to fight the coronavirus, Wa Kamamia called on the government to scale up limitations to drug exports from the country.
Kenya is the biggest exporter of manufactured drugs in the East African Community.
“We started feeling the shortage about one month ago when China, the biggest manufacturer of active ingredients, introduced a lockdown due to the Covid-19, and last week’s move by India to ban pharmaceutical exports.
This has seen prices of most of the common generic drugs go up by 50 per cent,” Wakamamia said during the launch of the PPB’s 2020-2025 strategic plan.
Three weeks ago, China shut down some of its pharmaceutical factories as it battled to contain the spread of the deadly virus.
And India, which sources most of the raw ingredients for common antibiotics and vitamins from the Asian superpower, enforced export safeguards last week.
“Since the outbreak of Covid-19, most of the factories in China have closed down. China is the biggest source of active pharmaceutical ingredients and also the excipients,” Wa Kamamia told journalists.
An excipient is a substance formulated alongside the active ingredient of a medication, included for the purpose of long-term stabilisation. “These are sourced by bigger countries with big pharmaceutical manufacturing capacities such as India,” he explained.
With Kenya becoming more alert, and keen to ensure the virus does not find its way into the country through the ports of entry, KPDA is concerned that a drug shortage will hurt the health sector at a critical time.
Kenya has less than 50 drug manufacturers who produce pharmaceutical products mainly for the East African Community market.
“To safeguard our country, the government now needs to come up with policies or guidelines that ensure that we don’t export everything that we manufacture locally. We must also ring-fence and protect our population from anything that may happen,” he said.
The government also needs to explore parallel importation from countries that are not considered core suppliers of pharmaceuticals to Kenya.
“We have to look beyond our traditional suppliers so as to mitigate any shortages as long as those suppliers meet the required standards,” he added. Some of the non-traditional source countries include Russia, Turkey, Pakistan and South Africa.
10-point strategy
The Pharmaceutical Board chairman Dr Jackson Kioko unveiled the 10-point strategy to prevent the spread of coronavirus, which includes scaling up the registration process of medical products to stop importation of substandard medicines.
Other steps include accelerated issuing of market authorisation for new applications using regulatory reliance mechanism; consideration of the use of “compassionate use programme” for products showing efficacy in the prevention and management of Covid-19; prioritise testing of health products and technologies (HPTs) in collaboration with National Quality Control Laboratory and other laboratories to assure quality and efficacy.
“We also want to fasttrack importation of Covid-19 HPTs; scan the environment on new innovations in relation to HPTs for Covid-19 by highlighting treatment protocol and any HPTs required for disaster preparedness,” he said.
Kioko said the board had also stepped up its market surveillance for the HPTs to assure quality, safety and efficacy.
“We are at this point exploring other sources of health commodities including Europe and the Americas in light of export restrictions of HPTs from India and China,” he added.
Kenya imports 70 per cent of the finished medical products consumed in the country, and 30 per cent active ingredients, mainly from China and India.
Most of the world’s top pharmaceutical manufacturers, according to KPDA, rely 80 per cent on China’s raw pharmaceutical ingredients which make the Sh22.4 trillion generics drugs business globally.
Some of the top generics medicines manufacturing companies like Teva Pharmaceutical Industries of India, produces 88 billion tablets and capsules annually at it 80 manufacturing facilities. Their generic medicines are said to meet critical consumer and societal needs.
Glenmark Pharmaceuticals and CIPLA pharmaceutical companies in India manufactures common medical supplies used in Kenya such as Racer Gel for management of anti-acids, Ascoril Syrup for blocked chests and Nifelat, a drug for hypertension.
Sandoz, the generic pharmaceuticals division of Novartis, a Germany pharmaceutical giant, produces essential generics important for the management of generic cardiovascular; the central nervous system and pain; opthalmology; oncology, respiratory and hormonal therapeutics. It is based in Germany.
Generic drugs are copies of brand-name drugs that have exactly the same dosage, intended use; side effects, route of administration, safety, and strength as the original drug.
Elsewhere in the world, Italy’s government pledged to further increase spending in a “massive shock therapy” to offset the economic impact of the coronavirus.
The country is struggling to adapt to the most restrictive measures since World War Two, introduced on Sunday.
Up to 16 million people in northern Italy now need permission to travel under quarantine rules. With 366 deaths now confirmed, Italy is the worst-hit country in the world after China.
In a separate development, six people died in a prison riot in the city of Modena, Italy amid protests at the introduction of new restrictions, local media reported. Prisoners set fire to a cell block after they were told that visits would be suspended, officials said.
And in the US, trading in shares was briefly suspended after sharp falls led to an automatic halt in the selling and buying of stocks.
Once trading resumed, the three major US stock indexes were down over six per cent. The move follows dramatic falls globally with shares facing the worst day since the 2008 financial crisis.
A row between Russia and Saudi Arabia saw oil prices plunge by 20 per cent, hitting markets already reeling from fears of the impact of the coronavirus.
The day has been dubbed “Black Monday” by analysts who described the market reaction as “utter carnage”. The number of infections worldwide is now more than 107,000, with about 3,600 deaths.
China, which has recorded the highest number of fatalities, reported no new locally transmitted infection outside of Hubei province, where the outbreak began, for the second consecutive day.Although this indicates that the spread there is slowing, senior officials warned against reducing vigilance.
Cancer patients
The threat of Coronavirus in the world is also likely to see Kenyan patients dependent on pharmaceutical commodities such as Aerocort inhalers, Amantrel, Anastrozole Femistra, Chlorambucil, Avamys, Cetrizine Tablets, Danocil, Melanocyl.
For cancer patients, Wa Kamamia said, it is even a double burden if this drug shortage becomes real due to the nature of the cost burden the disease comes with.
Some of the cancer drugs that are likely to be out of supply include; Egybort 2.0; Egybort 3.5; Unicarb 150, Uniplatin 50, Uniphos 1G, Oncotar 1000, Oncotar 500, Dacmed 200 and Epirubitec 50 that are among the 15 top pharmaceutical products used for the treatment and management of cancer in Kenya.
