AARP Eye Center
Doctor’s offices and hospitals are filling up with coughing, sneezing, feverish patients as the U.S. contends with a wave of winter illnesses. Meanwhile, some of the medications used to treat the bugs going around are hard to come by.
For example, an earlier-than-expected influenza surge is causing shortages in some areas of oseltamivir (Tamiflu), an antiviral medication that can help keep a mild case of the flu from progressing into something more serious. Nearly every state in the U.S. is reporting high levels of flu activity right now, and so far, at least 150,000 Americans have been hospitalized with the illness — the highest number we’ve seen this time of year in a decade, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

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At the same time, pharmacies are running low on some antibiotics — including amoxicillin for pediatric patients — used to treat bacterial complications (ear infections, pneumonia) that can arise following a viral infection. And stores in some regions can’t keep common pain relievers in stock.
The list doesn’t end there. Everything from Adderall to lidocaine to popular diabetes medications is in scarce supply. So are drugs used for anesthesia and fluids that fill IVs.
“The shortages span the gamut from things that are nice to have to things that are utterly necessary,” says Megan Ranney, M.D., an emergency physician and deputy dean at Brown University’s School of Public Health.
Drug shortages are not new
Patients may be feeling the pinch now, but drug shortages are nothing new, explains Stephen W. Schondelmeyer, a professor at the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy and co-principal investigator for the Resilient Drug Supply Project at the school’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP). 150 to 200 medications are not available in the U.S. at any given time, he adds. “On the one hand, that seems like a fairly small number,” Schondelmeyer says. “But to individual consumers, it can be everything.”
These shortages can happen for a number of reasons, ranging from high demand — like what we’re seeing right now with strapped supplies of amoxicillin and winter medicine-cabinet must-haves — to problems with supply, if a manufacturing plant closes or has issues with contaminants. Another cause: Some medications become too expensive for drugmakers to produce, Ranney says, “and it hurts the patient as a result.”