Drug Shortage: Causes, Impact, and Mitigation Strategies

Drug shortage is a global issue affecting low, middle, and high-income countries. Many countries have developed various strategies to overcome the problem, while the problem is accelerating, affecting the whole world. All types of drugs, such as essential life-saving drugs, oncology medicines, antim...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inFrontiers in pharmacology Vol. 12; p. 693426
Main Authors Shukar, Sundus, Zahoor, Fatima, Hayat, Khezar, Saeed, Amna, Gillani, Ali Hassan, Omer, Sumaira, Hu, Shuchen, Babar, Zaheer-Ud-Din, Fang, Yu, Yang, Caijun
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Switzerland Frontiers Media S.A 09.07.2021
Subjects
causes
definitions
drug shortage
impacts
medicine shortage
mitigation strategies
Pharmacology
drug shortage
impacts
definitions
medicine shortage
mitigation strategies
causes
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:Drug shortage is a global issue affecting low, middle, and high-income countries. Many countries have developed various strategies to overcome the problem, while the problem is accelerating, affecting the whole world. All types of drugs, such as essential life-saving drugs, oncology medicines, antimicrobial drugs, analgesics, opioids, cardiovascular drugs, radiopharmaceutical, and parenteral products, are liable to the shortage. Among all pharmaceutical dosage forms, sterile injectable products have a higher risk of shortage than other forms. The causes of shortage are multifactorial, including supply issues, demand issues, and regulatory issues. Supply issues consist of manufacturing problems, unavailability of raw materials, logistic problems, and business problems. In contrast, demand issues include just-in-time inventory, higher demand for a product, seasonal demand, and unpredictable demand. For regulatory issues, one important factor is the lack of a unified definition of drug shortage. Drug shortage affects all stakeholders from economic, clinical, and humanistic aspects. WHO established global mitigation strategies from four levels to overcome drug shortages globally. It includes a workaround to tackle the current shortage, operational improvements to reduce the shortage risk and achieve early warning, changes in governmental policies, and education and training of all health professionals about managing shortages.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-3
content type line 23
ObjectType-Review-1
This article was submitted to Drugs Outcomes Research and Policies, a section of the journal Frontiers in Pharmacology
Róbert György Vida, University of Pécs, Hungary
Edited by: Domenico Criscuolo, Italian Society of Pharmaceutical Medicine, Italy
Reviewed by: Umberto M. Musazzi, University of Milan, Italy
ISSN:1663-9812
1663-9812
DOI:10.3389/fphar.2021.693426