The virus inhibitor remdesivir has been discontinued from Dutch hospitals since Sunday. There is still enough stock in Belgium.
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The stock that the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment managed for the Netherlands has run out. A spokesman for the Ministry of Health (VWS) confirmed a message about this from the Financieele Dagblad. The drug is used in critically ill corona patients. The department expects ‘possibly today or tomorrow new deliveries from Brussels’, the spokesman said.
‘We still have enough’, says Ann Eeckhout, spokesperson for the Federal Agency for Medicines and Health Products (FAMHP). ‘The stock is five times larger than the total amount that we have already divided among the hospitals.’
The virus inhibitor was inhibdisivir delivered to Belgium in August and is recommended for critically ill covid patients with, for example, severe breathing difficulties or lack of oxygen in the blood. Sciensano’s prescriptions state that the drug should not be administered longer than necessary due to the ‘limited supply’. It is also not a cheap treatment: a cure costs 2,070 euros. It was originally used against the Ebola virus. Furthermore, the cheap steroid dexamethasone is also recommended.
No stock in hospital
The European Commission purchased the drug centrally for the EU countries. In recent weeks, the Netherlands has turned to the Commission because its stock was rapidly dwindling. The number of corona patients in the country has been increasing rapidly in recent weeks. The hospitals themselves do not have a stock of remdesivir in house. They must order the drug from the National Institute. The spokesperson does not know how much remdesivir has been ordered in Brussels for the Netherlands. He points out that there is a shortage of the drug worldwide, because the demand is greater than the supply.
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