MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 14th June, 2023) French President Emmanuel Macron's plan to localize the production of essential medicinal products will not help the country avoid shortages this coming winter, Minister of Health and Prevention Francois Braun said on Wednesday.
"We are still going to have shortages. I believe we have to be clear about it, there will be risks of some drugs being out of stock ... Next winter will still be difficult," Braun told RTL radio.
He noted that the contingency measures would take time to be implemented, and pointed out that France intends to invest 7.5 billion Euros ($8.1 billion) in the healthcare system by 2030 in order to achieve Macron's goal of full pharmaceutical independence for France.
On Tuesday, Macron announced that France would resume the domestic production of more than 50 medicines on which it depends the most. The production of 25 of them, including morphine, amoxicillin and a number of drugs for cancer, will be significantly increased.
France imports a significant proportion of medicines from China, India and the United States, and between 60% and 80% of the active ingredients, such as paracetamol, are also produced outside the country.
France faced shortages for a number of essential medicines during the COVID-19 pandemic and the influenza and bronchiolitis epidemics that overlapped with it last winter. In May, the chairwoman of the French Senate's commission of inquiry into the shortage of medicines, Sonia de La Provote, said that pharmacies in France lacked more than 3,000 types of drugs.
In October 2022, the French National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products imposed restrictions on the sale of medicines containing paracetamol of two packs per buyer, due to the risk of shortages. In January, France introduced a temporary restriction on the sale of paracetamol online due to its shortage. The French authorities cited the surge in coronavirus incidence in China, the source of a significant number of drugs in France, as the reason for these restrictions.
