The surge in flu cases and Covid-19 infections this month, together with elevated levels of childhood respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, infections has caused elevated demand for kids’s over-the-counter cold and flu medications. The commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration said his agency is working with producers to enhance supply but the present demand is unprecedented. Â
“We’re urging people not to purchase greater than they need because there is sufficient to go around for the quantity of illness. It’s just that the minute it gets shipped out it gets bought. And if people buy greater than they need and everybody does that, then individuals who need the products won’t give you the option to get them,” FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf told CNBC.
The demand has prompted among the nation’s largest pharmacy chains to limit purchases as a way to be sure there’s enough supply for fogeys who need it. This week CVS Health began limiting purchases to 2 kid’s over-the-counter pain and fever relief medication items in stores and online. Walgreens and Rite Aid have limited purchases of some items online but not in stores. A Walmart spokesperson told CNBC that it doesn’t have purchase limits on pediatric pain and fever products.
Johnson & Johnson, certainly one of the nation’s largest makers of kids’s pain medications, said it has ramped up production across the clock as a way to meet the unprecedented demand and is working with retailers to get more supply to areas where demand is higher.
“While products could also be less available at some stores, we will not be experiencing widespread shortages of Kid’s Tylenol or Kid’s Motrin,” a J&J spokesperson said in a press release. “We recognize this may increasingly be difficult for fogeys and caregivers, and are doing every little thing we are able to to be sure people have access to the products they need.”
On Wednesday, the Biden administration said it will release doses of Tamiflu, the prescription flu antiviral medication, from national stockpiles as a way to help maintain adequate supplies throughout the current flu season. Nonetheless, the federal government doesn’t have a stockpile for over-the-counter medications.
The FDA commissioner said his agency is working with manufacturers to be sure that supplies of kids’s medications reach the areas where they’re most needed. He added that sourcing more medication is a challenge immediately because other countries within the Northern Hemisphere are experiencing similar demand.
“The general supply is larger than it’s ever been, however the demand is even higher,” Califf said. “We have not seen the necessity, the demand nearly as high because it is now at any time in our recorded history.”
