Patients indicated a shortage of drugs for multiple sclerosis

Drugs with the active ingredient glatiramer acetate have stopped being given out in hospitals in at least eight regions, the All-Russian public organization of disabled people with multiple sclerosis told Izvestia. According to patients, the drug is not being dispensed in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Krasnoyarsk Territory, Khakassia, Ulyanovsk, Tyumen, Moscow and Rostov regions.

Therapeutic Passage: multiple sclerosis patients lack medications

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"The main reason why patients in these regions have difficulties with medicines is that pharmaceutical companies do not enter tenders under the state program "14 high—cost nosologies" or provide medicines in insufficient quantities," the patient organization says.

The drug is included in the treatment regimens for patients with multiple sclerosis and is one of the drugs, but not the main one, of the so-called first line, Nikolai Shamalov, chief freelance neurologist at the Ministry of Health, reminded Izvestia.

"Among all patients who receive drugs that alter the course of multiple sclerosis (PITRS), about 70% receive first—line drugs, and about 20% of them receive glatiramer acetate," he added.

Nikolay Shamalov emphasized that now the first-line nutrition products are represented by various active ingredients. According to him, they are all interchangeable.

Read more in the exclusive Izvestia article:

Nervous explosion: there is a shortage of medicines for multiple sclerosis in eight regions