Panic buying or a long-term problem? Russia suffers drug shortages amid sanctions over Ukraine war
First came the warnings, in messages among friends and families and on social media, to stock up on vital drugs in Russia before supplies were affected by crippling Western sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine.
Then, some drugs indeed became harder to find at pharmacies in Moscow and other cities.
“Not a single pharmacy in the city has it now,” a resident of Kazan told The Associated Press in late March about a blood thinner her father needs.
Experts and health authorities in Russia say the drug shortages are temporary — due to panic buying and logistical difficulties for suppliers from the sanctions — but some remain worried that high-quality medicines will keep disappearing in the Russian market.
“Most likely there will be shortages. How catastrophic it will be, I don't know,” said Dr Alexey Erlikh, head of the cardiac intensive care unit in Moscow Hospital No. 29, and a professor at the Moscow-based Pirogov Medical University.
Reports that Russians could not find certain medications in pharmacies started surfacing in early March, shortly after Moscow unleashed a war on Ukraine, and sweeping sanctions left Russia increasingly isolated from the rest of the world.
Patient’s Monitor, a patients' rights group in the Russian region of Dagestan on the Caspian Sea, began getting complaints in the second week of March.
Ziyautdin Uvaysov, head of the group, told AP he personally checked with several state-run pharmacies in the region on the availability of 10 most-wanted medications and "they didn’t have a large number of these.”
Uvaysov added that when he asked about when supplies would be restocked, the pharmacies replied that "there aren’t any and it’s unclear when there will be”.
Despite assurances from authorities that hoarding
Read more on euronews.com
