Morphine Shortages, The short-sightedness of relying on a single morphine powder supplier for South Africa’s healthcare facilities has been pinpointed as the cause of a devastating disruption in the supply of liquid morphine that has left some terminally ill patients suffering for over three months.
Jackie Maimin, CEO of the Independent Community Pharmacy Association (ICPA), says Cape Town-based medicine manufacturer Barrs Pharmaceuticals Industries, which is part of the Avacare Health Group, told ICPA that a clerical slip-up had been the reason for the bottleneck and breakdown in the supply chain of morphine powder. Morphine powder is used by pharmacists to make liquid morphine. Morphine Shortages, Stock of the powder form of the opioid in package sizes that individual pharmacists can use to make the liquid has been at critically low levels in government and private sector facilities since July. “Barrs said it had an administrative problem and did not place an order with its bulk supplier Fine Chemical Corporation (FCC),” FCC manufactures the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) for the commercially sold product. Maimin says the company confirmed to her that it has “plenty of stock” of morphine powder at its Cape Town-based operations. “Wholesalers started to show morphine as an out-of-stock item three months ago and pharmacists started to struggle to source the medicine for their patients. They had to purchase from colleagues who still had stock or contact prescribers to change medication,”
Barrs’ business is to repackage bulk supply of morphine powder into 5g and 10g products for pharmaceutical wholesalers. These are in turn made up into a product called Mist Morph, a more palatable liquid pain relieving syrup for chronic pain sufferers. It’s widely used for pain management for AIDS and cancer patients as well as for end-of-life pain relief. Morphine in liquid form is often the only way some patients in severe pain can receive the drug. There is always a risk of interruption and it’s why we should not have a single supplier of morphine powder,” says Maimin. “Pharmacies also can’t order directly from FCC as they only sell in bulk. Going forward, we would also like to see FCC repackage and supply morphine in package sizes that are suitable for pharmacies.” Morphine Shortages, There is also a need for a better early warning system before medicine supplies hit critically low levels, Maimin says, adding, “If there is any interruption in supply of an essential medicine which has no alternative [like liquid morphine], both the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority and the South African Pharmaceutical Council should be notified so they can notify health professionals.” There is also a need for a better early warning system before medicine supplies hit critically low levels.
Source: This news is originally published by allafrica