The territorial departments of Roszdravnadzor warned the heads of retail and wholesale pharmaceutical organizations about the shortage of dressings, hemostatic agents and hemostatic tourniquets, Pharmaceutical Bulletin writes with reference to the relevant information letter and sources in regional pharmacy associations.
From September 28, pharmacies were obliged to report weekly to the territorial authorities on the availability of the necessary medical devices. Pharmacy associations have asked distributors to stock supplies four to five times what they planned.
Such a letter was sent to wholesale pharmaceutical organizations by the Pharmaceutical Commonwealth Association, it was signed by the President of the Association, Natalya Nazarenko. Among other consumables, the letter indicates: a medical tourniquet, a medical collagen sponge, individual dressing bags – all of these products are not available or "appear briefly in the price lists of wholesale organizations." Also, a supply of sterile medical wipes, gloves, bandages, cotton wool, alcohol wipes and syringes is now needed, the letter states.
The Association sent a similar letter to the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Primorsky Territory with a request to assist in providing these medical devices.
At the same time, due to the war unleashed by Russia in Ukraine, the Russian army also lacks dressing materials. Sirena published a video in which a representative of a military unit in the Altai Territory advises conscripts to buy hydrogen peroxide, tourniquets, and also ask their wives to take the cheapest pads and tampons in order to close bullet holes with them. According to her, she has known this since the days of Chechnya.
This is not the first problem that the Russian pharmaceutical industry has faced since the start of the war. In May, the head of the scientific expertise of the pharmaceutical venture fund Inbio Ventures, Ilya Yasny, told The Insider that Russia was running out of reagents for laboratory tests. He also predicted problems with the production of medicines and disinfectants, in particular hydrogen peroxide. Later, in June, Kommersant reported that there was a shortage of subsidized medicines in hospital pharmacies. Most of all, there is a shortage of antiepileptic drugs, blood pressure lowering drugs, insulin and hypoglycemic drugs, "foreign effective" psychotropic drugs, drugs for the treatment of thyroid diseases.