AUSTIN (KXAN) — Since cold and flu season began in November, Austin’s Tarrytown Pharmacy has been answering calls from parents asking for baby- and child-friendly acetaminophen, including well-known brands like Tylenol. It comes amid a national shortage of pediatric care. Rising “Triple Demic” COVID-19, influenza, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) cases.
“There isn’t a lot of supply of the product itself, there’s a lot of demand,” said Ranon Chin, a pharmacist at Tarrytown Pharmacy. “When I go to the ordering company that buys over-the-counter products and prescription drugs, I see how much they have in stock, and there’s nothing there.”
In the case of limited supply levels, pharmacy suppliers may institute quota systems that allow each pharmacy to order only a certain number of units. These quotas can lead to high demand levels with limited relief.
“We were able to maintain a kind of slow trickle of ibuprofen specific products, [acetaminophen] It was much more challenging,” he said. “We’re just making phone calls and really hearing from a lot of people. [saying] Not in your local pharmacy or grocery store chain. So they are trying to find someone to do so. ”
Children’s medicines are getting people’s attention, but they’re not the only medicines in short supply. Other common cold and blood stasis remedies may still be in supply, but not in the same name brand products or dosage amounts that were once offered.
Since the outbreak of the pandemic, Tarrytown has stepped up its compounding services to expand its supply of products, Chin said. When the coronavirus pandemic began, its concoctions were primarily focused on supplies such as hand sanitizer.
Tarrytown can compound acetaminophen and ibuprofen, but the FDA has not declared acetaminophen deficiency in infants and children to be a “true national backorder,” so customers with prescriptions can Chin said it can only be provided to
For parents seeking child-friendly medications, Ching recommends families ask their child’s pediatrician for a prescription.
“The FDA has not declared this a true nationwide shortage, so we can mix ibuprofen and acetaminophen,” he said. “But it still requires a prescription, which only leads to a bit of bureaucracy as to how freely certain compound items can be distributed.”
