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For several weeks, drops for abdominal cramps Algifen Neo, which about sixty thousand people pick up at the pharmacy every month, will be missing from the market, Deputy Minister of Health Jakub Dvořáček announced. The medicine is used for various colic of the gallbladder or stomach or menstrual pain. According to experts, there are alternatives that doctors can prescribe. But they have to be prescribed straight away, it is not possible to exchange them at the pharmacy.
“Fortunately, they can be replaced relatively easily,” said Martin Votava, head of the Working Group for Drug Policy and Drug Categorization of the Czech Medical Society of Jan Evangelista Purkyně. According to him, doctors can prescribe other drugs with the active substance metamizole, possibly in combination with other drugs. “For some patients, we can also use other analgesics,” he added.
Due to a shortfall in the production of the active substance, the manufacturer will later deliver the drugs that were supposed to arrive in March. “A stable state will be established in the second half, rather at the end of May,” announced Dvořáček. According to the authorized director of the State Institute for Drug Control (SÚKL), Jakub Velík, the institute also discussed the delivery of a foreign-language batch, but the drug with the same composition is only delivered to the Czech Republic and Slovakia. According to him, there are enough substitute medicines in pharmacies.
The problem of unavailability of medicines came into greater focus at the end of 2022, when some antibiotics and children’s fever syrup were simultaneously missing. The government then approved a law that will allow foreign-language batches of medicines with the same composition to be supplied. Several hundred thousand packages of antibiotics alone were imported.
According to Dvořáček, it should now be easier for patients to find out which pharmacy has the medicine they are looking for in stock. “From June 1, information will be available on where the remaining stocks are. Both the State Institute for Drug Control and the Ministry of Health are working on this,” he added.
