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News Medicines shortages in the UK are now the ‘new normal’ post-Brexit
Global supply problems have caused a “shock rise” in shortages of life-saving drugs like antibiotics and epilepsy medication, according to a new report by the Nuffield Trust think tank. These shortages come at a cost to the patient and the taxpayer, and are happening despite the NHS spending hundreds of extra millions trying to mitigate the problem. The UK risks being left in the cold when it comes to co-ordinated EU attempts to tackle them, the think tank has warned. The researchers found that the past two years have seen constantly elevated medicines shortages, in a “new normal” of frequent disruption to crucial products. The key findings included: l Price concessions (where the government gives extra funding because there are no drugs left at the NHS price) have risen sharply in recent
months: prior to 2016, there were rarely more than 20 per month but, in late 2022, they peaked at 199 and have remained high ever since.
l The excess cost for medicines in months when they were subject to price concessions was £220m across the year to September 2023.
l There are now over double the number of notifications by drugs companies warning of impending shortages than there were three years ago: in 2023 there were 1,634 such alerts issued, compared to 648 in 2020 (a spike in 2021 was caused by concerns over supply fears in Northern Ireland following Brexit).
l The UK has been slower to approve drugs than the EU for new drugs that are authorised centrally. Of drugs authorised in the year to December 2023, 56 drugs authorised in Europe
were approved later in the UK and eight have not been approved. Four were approved faster.
The report shows that the EU Exit has not caused the recent spike in medicine shortages, but it is likely to weaken the UK’s ability to respond to them by splitting it from European supply chains, authorisations and collective efforts to respond to shortages. In particular, the research highlights the risks posed to the UK from being left out of key initiatives like the Critical Medicines Alliance and Voluntary Solidarity Mechanism, led by EU member states, to work together to insulate themselves from the impact of medicines shortages. The research, published as part of a wider report titled:The future for health after Brexit, also reveals that the NHS has had to rely on ethically dubious sources of migration to shore up its workforce.
https://tinyurl.com/bdfy9m2r
New links between bacteraemia and probiotic use
Researchers from Osaka University found that all identified C. butyricum bacteraemia strains were probiotic derivatives using whole-genome sequencing. Probiotics offer a range of health benefits, but their adverse effects can occasionally lead to bacteraemia, wherein bacteria circulate in the bloodstream throughout the body. In Japan, Clostridium butyricum (C. butyricum) MIYAIRI 588 is commonly used, yet the prevalence and characteristics of bacteraemia caused by this strain, as well as its bacteriological and genetic profile, remain unknown. The research team from the Graduate
School of Medicine, Osaka University, found an association between bacteraemia and probiotics from a study of the genetic materials of bacteria in hospitalised patients with bacteraemia. “Probiotics can provide a variety of health benefits, but this study shows that even such agents can present with rare but serious adverse events,” says study lead author, Ryuichi Minoda Sada. “Our findings underscore the risk for bacteraemia resulting from probiotic use, especially in hospitalised patients, necessitating judicious prescription practices.” View the full paper at: http://doi. org/10.3201/eid3004.231633
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