A Turkish pharmaceutical company will send the much-needed pain and fever medications acetaminophen and ibuprofen to Alberta, then to other provinces in Canada, according to an announcement made on Tuesday.
The western Canadian province of Alberta signed an agreement with the Türkiye-based Atabay Pharmaceuticals and Fine Chemicals to procure 5 million bottles of children's medications to alleviate a critical shortage.
"In the days ahead, we will be working closely with Alberta Health Services and Health Canada to expedite the approval process and get this additional supply to Canada and onto Alberta pharmacy shelves and into hospitals as quickly as possible," Alberta Health Minister Jason Copping told reporters Tuesday.
He made the announcement, along with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, at a drug store in the province.
"Many families are feeling overwhelmed, dealing with, especially, fevers, coughs and other issues with their kids," said Smith. "It's one more thing parents have to worry about. And it's yet another pressure placed on our strained public health care system."
An early onslaught of child respiratory illness, specifically respiratory syncytial virus, flu and the coronavirus combined for a perfect storm, leaving Canada critically short of medications.
"Once approvals are in place, we should only be a few weeks (from getting the medications)," said Copping. "The medication will be sent to us in a number of shipments.
"When a shipment is received, the bottles will be available for ordering by pharmacies across the province and distributed within a couple of days."
The province will need 500,000 bottles and the rest will be shared with other provinces, Copping said.
