First lung transplants were slashed in an Australian state. Now they are complaining of looming penicillin shortage. Besides a major newspaper talks of serious shortage of many other drugs too in the country.CSL, the sole Australian penicillin supplier, had announced last week there was just one week’s supply of the drug left in the country, provoking a huge public outcry.
The alarmed Therapeutic Goods Administration has said it will fast-track the approval of an emergency penicillin supply.
The Administration, the country’s medicine watchdog, says it has identified an international supplier and is working with Australian drug companies to import the medicine into the country within weeks.
Ironically the team which developed penicillin in the 1930s was led by an Australian scientist, a Rhodes Scholar from Adelaide, Howard Florey. He won the Nobel prize in 1945. Thanks to his team's work the drug has saved many lives.
But then it’s history. The fact of the matter is that for the next few months the all important drug won't be readily available in Australian hospital medicine cabinets.
Infectious diseases specialist Peter Collignon says the shortage poses an unacceptable risk to patients’ safety.
“We have a company that supplies this drug, it’s an essential drug for Australia and they can’t supply it. Now I think that is a real problem,” he said.
The Australian Medical Association federal president, Steve Hambleton said, “It's widely used right across the country and if we had one supplier and there's a glitch in the supply chain and our inventories are pretty low, then the impact will be felt on the frontline and that's what we're seeing now.
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