The Pfizer emblem is displayed on the outside of a former Pfizer manufacturing unit, on May 4, 2014, within the Brooklyn borough of New York.
Mark Lennihan/AP
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Mark Lennihan/AP
The Pfizer emblem is displayed on the outside of a former Pfizer manufacturing unit, on May 4, 2014, within the Brooklyn borough of New York.
Mark Lennihan/AP
Pfizer is going through a scarcity of penicillin because of elevated demand and extra diagnoses of syphilis, the corporate stated in a letter to its clients this week.
The firm stated there’s an “impending inventory out state of affairs” for choose Bicillin L-A and Bicillin C-R prefilled syringes, Pfizer’s model title of injectable penicillin.
Prefilled Bicillin L-A pediatric syringes are anticipated to start operating low by the tip of June, whereas all Bicillin C-R syringes may start diminishing within the third quarter of this yr.
Inventory is predicted to begin recovering within the second and third quarters of 2024, Pfizer stated.
Penicillin is an antibiotic used to deal with varied varieties of infections, together with sexually transmitted illnesses, corresponding to syphilis and pneumonia.
Syphilis charges have been at a historic low from 2000 to 2001, however have elevated yearly since, with a rise of 28.6% from 2020 to 2021, which was seemingly exacerbated by an interruption in therapy and prevention because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stated.
The shortage of penicillin comes amid a long-term scarcity of prescribed drugs the U.S. has been experiencing for the final decade, normally because of disruptions within the provide chain, just like the one brought on by the pandemic, Marta Wosińska, a visiting fellow at The Brookings Institution, instructed NPR earlier this yr.
Other prescriptions, corresponding to Adderall and kids’s flu medicine have additionally been briefly provide.