Inhaler shortage: If you’re asthmatic read this quickly before you run out of...

KARACHI: In Aisha’s kindergarten class, an incredible 19 out of 24 children use inhalers or nebulizers for asthma. Imagine Aisha’s mother’s panic when visit after visit to pharmacies last week were in vain for the medication.

In a jam-packed Kausar Medical Store at Punjab Chowrangi, a woman got in line to buy an inhaler for her son but was told ‘not today’. “I cannot buy an alternate medicine without asking my doctor first,” she told the pharmacist, who was already distracted by the horde of customers. She was suffering on two counts - confusion and a lack of information. Anyone who has been looking for the instant relief Ventolin inhalers should now ask for Aerolin, the new ozone-friendly GlaxoSmithKline product.

There are two types of inhalers, explained pulmonologist Dr Fayaz Zuberi - the instant relief ones and the controlled steriod ones. He clarified that if the ingredients are the same, a patient can use another product if the usual one is short.

Unfortunately, though, during the course of investigating complaints of a shortage of inhalers in the city, neither pharmacists nor company representatives mentioned to The Express Tribune the Aerolin option. Instead, what is happening is panic. People asking for inhalers at several major and minor stores across the city told The Express Tribune that they were being sent back and they were too nervous to accept an alternate medicine without asking their doctor first.

A shortage of medicines is nothing new, said Wasif Ali, in his late 40s. He was standing in queue at a pharmacy for an inhaler for an hour. “If it were for me, I would not have cared much. But it is for my father.”

It was a similar situation at Kausar Medical Store on MA Jinnah Road. The pharmacist told three customers, one after the other, to look somewhere else. After a few minutes of shouting, the men walked out.

Customer Sakina pulled out a torn prescription from her bag as she waited in line for inhaler Ventide. After waiting for 15 minutes, she was also asked to look in another store because the alternate medicines were also short by that time.

When questioned about the veracity of reports that there is a shortage of inhalers, GSK distribution manager MP Mirza failed to first mention Aerolin. He instead said that they would never intentionally destroy their own business by holding back medicines in bulk. Mirza said that chemists were responsible for the sudden shortage of certain medicines. “There used to be a system of drug inspectors checking the medical stores. It is not being done now so it is obvious who is to blame.”

Showing a list, Punjab Chowrangi pharmacist Ammar Raza said that even ointments and eye drops have not been supplied for weeks. “Why would we hide medicines if we have them in bulk?” he asked. “Our best bet is to sell them as much as we can.” Raza said that Ventide was short but they were offering people the alternate Clenil A Compositum. It is just a difference of names, he said. He failed, however, to explain this to his customers during peak hours, usually after 5 pm.

Pharmacist Salman Rashid at MA Jinnah Road said that patients are reluctant to try Aerolin as well. “They say it doesn’t suit them,” he said. They are too attached psychologically to the inhaler they’ve been using and don’t want to risk trying a new version of the product. One asthmatic said that he had stocked up on 10 old inhalers.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 11^th, 2011.