The SPÖ now sees a monitoring failure by the Ministry of Health behind the poor availability of the Covid drug Paxlovid last December. The answer from Minister Johannes Rauch (Greens) to a parliamentary question makes it clear how little overview the responsible department had over the issue of Paxlovid. The “control failure” requires rapid clarification, emphasized SPÖ equal treatment spokesman Mario Lindner to the APA on Friday.
Rauch last spoke in January about an unexplained shortage of the drug and called in the financial prosecutor’s office as the “lawyer of the republic”. He asked the approximately 1,400 public pharmacies to provide full evidence of its use. The Chamber of Pharmacists then blamed different billing modalities for discrepancies between the packages ordered by the federal government and those delivered by the wholesaler.
The SPÖ now explained that the distribution of corona medication during the pandemic had been coordinated by the Ministry of Defense, but that the health department had taken over this task in July 2023. According to Lindner’s statement, it should have been at least fundamentally clear how many medications were where and at what point in time. In his answer – available to the APA – Rauch wrote that “according to this monitoring and reporting system (…) there was still a sufficient stock of Paxlovid treatment units available for distribution to patients as of November 30, 2023.”
Shortly afterwards, however, there were increasing reports of empty stocks and sick patients who could not get the medication prescribed by the doctor, the SPÖ recalled. “While people all over Austria with an acute corona infection had to drag themselves from pharmacy to pharmacy and still couldn’t find any medicine, the responsible Ministry of Health apparently didn’t even know which medicines were where. That’s completely unacceptable,” criticizes Lindner. In addition to “rapid clarification,” “measures are needed so that something like this can no longer happen in any other case.”
Rauch did not answer the SPÖ’s question about the number of packs issued since the drug became available in Austria, citing the confidentiality of the delivery contract. After reports of availability and distribution problems, the Ministry of Health purchased an additional 18,300 treatment units in December. Since the beginning of February, Paxlovid has no longer been procured by the federal government, but has been listed in the social security reimbursement code, which means that pharmacies can order the drug through the regular processes and dispense it to patients.
2024-02-09 11:16:44