Dataset Information

Time-trend analysis of medicine sales and shortages during COVID-19 outbreak: Data from community pharmacies.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:COVID-19 is a worldwide public health concern. Disruptions in the drug market are expected and shortages might worsen. Community pharmacies can contribute to early identification and report of medicines' supply and demand issues. OBJECTIVE:The aim of this study is to characterize the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on outpatient medicines' sales and shortages. METHODS:A retrospective, time-trend analysis of medicine sales, shortages and laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases was performed from February 1st to April 30th, 2020, and its homologous period (regarding sales only). A detailed analysis of 6 pharmaceutical substances was performed. All data were subjected to rescaling using the min-max normalization method, in order to become comparable. Data analysis was performed using Microsoft® Excel. RESULTS:The pandemic resulted in an increase in medicines' demand and reported shortages during the early stage of the outbreak. The maximum proportion of medicine sales was registered on March 13th, 2020, 4 days after the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic. By the end of March, sales have already dropped to proportions similar to those of 2019. The maximum proportion of drug shortages was reached about one week after the sales peak and by the end of the study period were below those recorded in the pre-COVID-19 period. The analyzed drugs were paracetamol, ascorbic acid, dapagliflozin plus metformin, rosuvastatin plus ezetimibe, formoterol, and hydroxychloroquine, as these pharmaceutical substances registered the highest growth rate in sales and shortages when compared to the same period in the previous year. Hydroxychloroquine showed the most different pattern trends on sales and shortages of these medicines. CONCLUSIONS:Pharmacies can provide timely and real-world data regarding sales and shortages. The adopted measures to guarantee the continuous supply of the medicine market seem to have worked. The long-term impacts of this pandemic are unknown and should continue to be closely monitored.

SUBMITTER: Romano S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7245321 | biostudies-literature | 2020 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Time-trend analysis of medicine sales and shortages during COVID-19 outbreak: Data from community pharmacies.

Romano Sónia S Galante Heloísa H Figueira Débora D Mendes Zilda Z Rodrigues António Teixeira AT

Research in social & administrative pharmacy : RSAP 20200523 1

<h4>Background</h4>COVID-19 is a worldwide public health concern. Disruptions in the drug market are expected and shortages might worsen. Community pharmacies can contribute to early identification and report of medicines' supply and demand issues.<h4>Objective</h4>The aim of this study is to characterize the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on outpatient medicines' sales and shortages.<h4>Methods</h4>A retrospective, time-trend analysis of medicine sales, shortages and laboratory-confirmed COVID ...[more]

PMID: 32482587

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Project description:BACKGROUND:Community pharmacies provide an important healthcare service, which is broadly established, and constitutes the preferred and initial contact for members of the community. The significant value of community pharmacies was further highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. OBJECTIVE:The assessment of community pharmacies preparedness for the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS:A cross-sectional interview survey of 1018 community pharmacies working in four regions of Egypt (South, East, Centre, and North). Data collection was conducted from 8-19 April 2020. RESULTS:Availability of personal protective equipment (PPE) and medication was better than alcohol (70% conc.). Home delivery services were available in 49.1% of pharmacies. Infection control measures covering interactions between staff were in place in up to 99.5% of pharmacies. Conversely, there was less frequent availability of contactless payment (29.1%), hand sanitizers (62.1%) or masks (86.5%) for customer use, or a separate area for patients with suspected COVID-19 (64%). Verbal customer education (90.4%) was used preferably to written (81.3%). Despite high clinical knowledge and awareness (97.6%-99.2%), only 8.8% of pharmacists had reported suspected COVID-19 cases, however this varied significantly with pharmacist demographics (geographic region P < 0.001; pandemic training p < 0.001; position p = 0.019; age p = 0.046). CONCLUSIONS:Government and policymakers strive to mitigate the shortage of PPE and medication. More attention should be given to infection control measures around interactions between staff and customers to ensure community pharmacists are fit and able to provide continuity in their important role. Educating customers using regularly-updated posters, banners or signs will contribute to decreasing contact with patients, and reducing the number and duration of visits to the pharmacy. Pandemic preparedness of community pharmacists must also extend to reporting procedures. By avoiding under-reporting or over-reporting, community pharmacists will contribute to accurate monitoring of the national spread of infection.

Project description:BackgroundCOVID-19 has triggered an avalanche of research publications, the various aspects of which need to be assessed. The objective of this study is to determine the scientific community's response patterns to COVID-19 through a bibliometric analysis of the time-trends, global contribution, international collaboration, open-access provision, science domains of focus, and the behavior of journals.MethodsThe bibliographic records on COVID-19 literature were retrieved from both PubMed and Scopus. The period for searching was set from November 1, 2019, to April 15, 2021. The bibliographic data were coupled with COVID-19 incidence to explore possible association, as well as World Bank indicators and classification of economies.ResultsA total of 159132 records were included in the study. Following the escalation of incidences of COVID-19 in late 2020 and early 2021, the monthly publication count made a new peak in March 2021 at 20505. Overall, 125155 (78.6%) were national, 22548 (14.2%) were bi-national, and 11429 (7.2%) were multi-national. Low-income countries with 928 (66.8%) international publications had the highest percentage of international. The open-access provision decreased from 85.5% in February 2020 to 62.0% in April 2021. As many as 82841 (70.8%) publications were related to health sciences, followed by life sciences 27031 (23.1%), social sciences 20291 (17.3%), and physical sciences 15141 (12.9%). The top three medical subjects in publications were general internal medicine, public health, and infectious diseases with 28.9%, 18.3%, and 12.6% of medical publications, respectively.ConclusionsThe association between the incidence and publication count indicated the scientific community's interest in the ongoing situation and timely response to it. Only one-fifth of publications resulted from international collaboration, which might lead to redundancy without adding significant value. Our study underscores the necessity of policies for attraction of international collaboration and direction of vital funds toward domains of higher priority.

Dataset Information

Time-trend analysis of medicine sales and shortages during COVID-19 outbreak: Data from community pharmacies.

Publications

Time-trend analysis of medicine sales and shortages during COVID-19 outbreak: Data from community pharmacies.

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