MMA advises public against panic buying amid medicine shortage
This comes as a shortage of certain medicines has hit the country.
The Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) has advised the public to refrain from panic buying amid a shortage of medicines in the country.
This comes as a shortage of certain medicines has hit the country.
The association claimed that this was not a new phenomenon after countries resumed economic activities after the pandemic.
MMA president Dr Koh Kar Chai also attributed the shortage due to the unprecedented level of demand for common medications brought on by the Omicron Covid-19 wave.
He said following this, the industry had responded by placing higher orders for products from overseas manufacturers.
“As this is a worldwide problem, imports of both the finished products as well as raw materials are affected.
“Local manufacturers are limited by their capacity to ramp up production.
“It is not a simple matter to increase production just to address the shortfall of supplies in the market,” he said.
Koh noted that the manufacturing plants are built to certain specifications - which may not allow any sudden and massive increase in the rate of production.
“We do hope for a correction in the supply and demand situation of pharmaceuticals in the Malaysian market soon. If uncorrected, even the supply of other previously unaffected medications will be disrupted.
“An advice to the public is not to panic buy and unnecessarily hoard medications which are not immediately needed, to avoid aggravating the situation,” he said.
Health news portal Code Blue reported today that the two-month lockdown in Shanghai, China, coupled with the war in Ukraine, had triggered Malaysia’s current shortages of various prescription and over-the-counter medications.
This included children’s syrups and treatments intended for chronic conditions.
Code Blue reported the shortages are due to the entirety of Malaysia’s supply of finished pharmaceutical products being either directly imported or imported indirectly through the imported active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and pharmaceutical intermediates for local manufacturers.
The Ukraine-Russia war has driven up oil prices and cut off some shipping routes, impacting the cost of shipping, while China's lockdown is causing a shortage as the country is the largest supplier of APIs and pharmaceutical intermediates.
China and Russia are also leading exporters of starch, used to bind powders in a tablet, while Russia is a major exporter of metals, including aluminium, used in blister packs.
