Pharmacies in Bosnia and Herzegovina are increasingly running out of medicines, but substitutes are offered, so there have been no major problems in supplying the market so far.
The Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices of Bosnia and Herzegovina says that there are occasional interruptions in the supply of certain medicines on the market of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
They state that a large number of medicines have substitutes, in the sense that it is a drug with the same active substance from another manufacturer or a drug used for the same indication.
“This is the reason that so far there have been no major problems in the supply of the market”, they said in an interview with Fena from the Agency, but they did not specify exactly which medicines are most lacking in the domestic market.
At the end of the year, the European Commission published the first EU list of critical medicines with more than 200 active substances. It is an important part of the EU’s efforts within the European Health Union to provide patients with the medicines they need by promoting security of supply of critical medicines and preventing shortages.
A medicine is considered critical if it is key to ensuring continuity of care, providing quality healthcare and guaranteeing a high level of public health protection in Europe.
The consumption of antibiotics is increasing
The Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices of Bosnia and Herzegovina also warns that the consumption of antibiotics is increasing.
The excessive use of antibiotics is dangerously undermining their effectiveness and increasing resistance that could be responsible for 10 million deaths a year worldwide by 2050, the European branch of the World Health Organization (WHO) recently warned.
“The consumption of antibiotics is increasing. It amounted to 17.4 DID (DID-daily defined dose per 1000 inhabitants per day; it is a unit for measuring consumption that is independent of the price of the drug and the number of inhabitants) in 2019, 19.2 DID in 2020 and 19.0 DID in 2021. So, in recent years, the consumption of antibiotics has increased significantly,” the Agency emphasizes.
At the end, they also said that in 2022, the most money was spent on drugs from the group Antineoplastics and immunomodulators, and we are talking about drugs for the treatment of autoimmune diseases and various forms of cancer.
