An additional 500,000 units of children’s medicine will arrive in Canada over the next three weeks via imports from abroad, the federal government said Friday, as rising cases of influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) strain the health care system and families.
One million bottles of medicine for children have already arrived this week via imports from abroad and about 1.1 million units have been produced in the country so far in November, Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said at a press conference on Friday.
Those 1.1 million were up from the 300,000 units typically produced at this time of year, Duclos told reporters.
“Production has doubled in the last few weeks,” he said. One million imported units, which were announced last week, are currently arriving and being distributed to pharmacies, he said, adding that the new 500,000 units will include imports from various suppliers worldwide.
There are also an additional 100,000 units coming from Australia specifically for hospitals, a Health Canada spokesperson told CTVNews.ca in a phone call.
The federal government is under pressure to quickly fix a months-long shortage of painkillers for children that worsened in the fall as hospitals and health clinics across Canada grapple with a “multidemic” of illnesses.
The combination of circulating viruses has led to waits in some emergency rooms of more than 20 hours and many pediatric intensive care units overcrowded. While RSV cases have “leveled off,” infections will remain high for weeks and Canada is experiencing a “sharp rise” in flu activity that disproportionately affects children and teenagers, Dr. Theresa Tam, the country’s top doctor, told press conference.
Critics have raised questions about why it took until the fall for the federal government to ramp up efforts to secure more supplies of medicine for children. The Conservatives called on the government in early October to allow the importation of drugs with labels in foreign languages. At the time, Duclos told CTVNews.ca that Health Canada “reaffirms to all manufacturers its openness to discussing mitigation options and to exploring all opportunities to accelerate or increase supply, including reviewing proposals that may require regulatory flexibility or consideration of foreign supplies’.
Before making vacation plans, Tam recommends everyone get a flu shot, as it prevents severe illness and will help prevent the current flu strain from spreading. She also recommends wearing a face mask and staying home when you’re sick.
Health workers are working overtime, and the Ontario government released a memo Wednesday calling for family clinics to work nights and weekends to ease the strain on hospitals. The shortage of health workers, which health experts say is due to overwork, lack of sick days and concerns about wages, has left hospitals under-resourced.
The lifting of pandemic restrictions has led to a more vulnerable immune system and a greater likelihood of severe illness, especially for vulnerable groups, doctors told CTVNews.ca this week.
Influenza is among the 10 leading causes of death in Canada. About 12,200 people are hospitalized each year because of the virus, and about 3,500 die annually as a result, according to the federal government.
Canada’s weekly flu report shows a flu epidemic has begun and that there has been a “sharp increase” in flu-related hospitalizations among children. In the week ending Nov. 12, there were 186 flu-related hospitalizations nationwide.
In Friday’s update, officials also said Health Canada is working with platforms like Amazon to ensure there are no inflated prices for children’s drugs.
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