Drug shortages: the government bans the sale of paracetamol online

Europe 1 with AFP 10:55 a.m., January 4, 2023

The government banned the online sale of paracetamol products until the end of January on Wednesday, in a persistent context of supply difficulties for this ubiquitous drug in medicine cabinets.

"The internet sale of specialties composed exclusively of paracetamol is suspended until January 31, 2023", decreed the government in a decree published in the Official Journal. 

This decision takes note of the fact that "the tensions in paracetamol-based medicines have been continuing for more than six months", in particular for the forms intended for children.

"The various measures taken by the health authorities, however effective they may have been, have not so far made it possible to put an end to it", recognizes the decree.

These supply difficulties are part of a context of drug shortages

For several months, the National Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM) has been asking pharmacists to ration the sale of paracetamol to each patient, an emblematic painkiller which is used in particular as a basis for Sanofi's Doliprane and Dafalgan.

In December, the Ministry of Health had already warned that, despite these measures, the situation remained "complex" and would not be resolved for several weeks.

The government, in its decree, highlights in particular the worsening health situation in China, where Covid cases are exploding after a sudden lifting of drastic health restrictions.

The Chinese government has banned the export of paracetamol, while the country produces a large part of the active ingredient used by laboratories around the world.

These supply difficulties are also part of a broader context of shortages of multiple drugs, in France or other countries, starting with antibiotics such as amoxicillin.