A nurse in the chemotherapy department in Vannes (illustration image).

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Maxime Le Pihif / SIPA

Cancer patients called to testify in the face of the shortage of drugs.

If the problem already existed before the coronavirus, it has worsened, warns the League against cancer, which is launching a mobilization campaign on Monday.

“This phenomenon could undoubtedly have been aggravated by the Covid, but in no case was it created by the Covid.

It's really a problem linked to the economic structure of the drug market, ”Prof Axel Kahn, president of the League against cancer, told AFP.

There has been talk of anesthetic shortages during the Covid crisis, but cancer and drug shortages for its treatment have been forgotten, he laments.

The League calls for sanctions

The problem was already serious and worrying before the health crisis caused by the Covid-19 epidemic.

With 1,499 drugs reported in difficulty or disruption of supply to the ANSM Medicines Agency, "the year 2019 reached a record with 34 times more shortages reported than in 2008", notes the League, which has been fighting for a long time against this scourge because these reports do not spare oncology (affected by 22% of reports in 2017).

Are mainly affected generic drugs, very inexpensive, but important in cancerology.

The League calls in particular for financial sanctions against laboratories that do not assume the supply, as well as the information of the patients concerned and their census and studies measuring their loss of opportunity.

74% of caregivers affected

To collect the testimonies, the League opened a penuries.ligue-cancer.net website.

In addition to this collection of “electronic grievance notebooks”, it is launching a poster campaign “Dear patient, for your medication, thank you for being patient”.

Posters will be available in all metropolitan and overseas departments where the League has committees.

These can help those who are not comfortable with computers.

95% of hospital pharmacists note a worsening of the phenomenon, according to an Ipsos survey carried out from October 29 to December 4, 2019 for the League with a representative sample of 500 health professionals (city and hospital pharmacists, oncologists, general practitioners, etc. ).

74% of healthcare professionals surveyed said they had already faced shortages of cancer drugs during their career.

Three quarters of the caregivers questioned agree that despite the existence of substitute drugs, these shortages mean a loss of opportunity for patients.

45% of professionals observe a deterioration in survival 5 years after the diagnosis of the disease in patients affected by these shortages.

A figure that rises to 68% among oncologists who experience shortages.

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