The earlier-than-usual influenza season, combined with respiratory syncytial virus infections and COVID-19, hit hospitals and families hard.Joe O'Connal/The Canadian Press
There’s a weariness in the eyes of the Costco pharmacist when I ask if she has any children’s pain and fever medication. It’s clear she has been asked this question a number of times, even since the store opened that morning. And the answer is still no.
There is ibuprofen available for little kids in Calgary, if you look. I’m searching around this week to restock our empty medicine cabinet after a period of seemingly unending illness between September and mid-December. The earlier-than-usual influenza season, combined with respiratory syncytial virus infections and COVID-19, hit hospitals and families hard. Stressed parents, often sick themselves, spent an inordinate amount of time messaging one another or posting about which stores had children’s medicines in stock.
What is it like out there now? It’s still not plentiful. At the Safeway in the Beltline in Calgary, there are 10 bottles of children’s Advil on display, with a note that the purchase limit is one per household. Several suburban pharmacists tell me over the phone they have some in stock. At Lukes Drug Mart – the city’s oldest pharmacy, still family-owned – a 100-millilitre bottle is $10, cheaper than many of the chains, or Amazon.
And even with the federal government’s importation of two million units two months ago, the potential for new waves of illness and the medication crunch south of the border means Canadian parents can’t exhale yet.
Federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos sounded optimistic last week, saying those children’s pain and fever medication imports, and significant new domestic production, means shortages are starting to disappear. “It’s not perfect everywhere. But the situation is much better now than it used to be.”
Even in super-politicized Alberta, the news that a shipment of children’s medication landed earlier this month was received as good news by nearly everyone – no matter their political stripe. It was the first part of a five-million-bottle acetaminophen and ibuprofen order made by the Smith government.
Manufactured by Turkey’s Atabay Pharmaceuticals and Fine Chemicals, the initial shipment will go to hospitals. The rest, when it gets the sign off from Health Canada and arrives, is destined for home use. The Premier’s office said updates on the shipment’s timing will be issued as soon as possible.
There’s lots to pick apart when it comes to Premier Danielle Smith’s past remarks on the treatment for COVID-19, masking, and her government’s approach to health care. The first delivery of acetaminophen is coming later than originally promised. But the United Conservative Party government, like the federal government, deserves credit for at least trying to get more children’s medication in stock.
The United States is now caught in its own children’s pain and fever medication worries – an industry group for drug manufacturers said in December the earliest peak in influenza in more than a decade means sales of the drugs are up 65 per cent from the previous year. It’s not a nationwide shortage, U.S. authorities say, but regional scarcity because of demand. It’s yet unclear whether the U.S. push for new supplies helps or hinders Canada getting more medicines on shelves.
In Ottawa, Mr. Duclos said he’s asked officials to put new emphasis on how Canada can avoid drug shortages in the future, which he noted can happen “quite rapidly” based on increased demand or other factors.
This is needed, because it’s a new era for the Western world, where medicines and other stuff are less likely to be at our fingertips. Both government intervention and changes on the home front are likely to become part of the norm. I’ve tried to keep my kids comfortable when they have a fever with a cool facecloth instead of automatically reaching for pain medication. It sometimes works. And also, I now keep a bag of both potatoes and rice in storage, much like our grandmothers did if they had the means during times of depression or war.
And to be sure, it’s not like we’ve never had empty shelves before. But the pandemic has induced multiple disruptions that have made the situation worse. The U.S. infant formula shortage of 2022 still isn’t fully resolved, for pity’s sake.
The pandemic is not done with us. It’s not just about the first cases of the COVID-19 variant Kraken showing up here, but also how disruptions to manufacturing and distribution – along with demand spikes – continue to roil North Americans accustomed to plenty.