National Post ePaper

Province faces shortage of key COVID medication

ZAK VESCERA zvescera@postmedia.com

Saskatchewan is running low on a medication used to treat the sickest COVID-19 patients.

The Ministry of Health estimated on Thursday that it only had enough tocilizumab to treat about 21 patients, or enough supply for about two weeks, even as the number of people in ICU with COVID -19 reaches record heights.

“Given current demand, there is approximately two weeks of supply remaining,” the ministry wrote in an unattributed statement, adding that physicians had been alerted and the government was working with the manufacturer and federal authorities to get more. The province did not specify which avenues it was pursuing.

There is a global run on tocilizumab, an anti-inflammatory drug used off-label to treat severe COVID-19 in combination with steroids.

“That combination seems to reduce mortality by a certain amount, depending on how sick you are,” University of British Columbia infectious disease and critical medicine professor Dr. Srinivas Murthy said in an interview last week.

Murthy, who has run a clinical trial with the drug, said it's a wellknown medication for treating conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, and one of few drugs that makes a meaningful difference in treating “the sickest of the sick” COVID-19 patients.

That rare status has created skyrocketing demand.

Jennifer Mota, a spokeswoman for Hoffman-la Roche Ltd., said the company supplied the drug at more than twice the previous rate in 2021 amid “unprecedented” demand, adding that it continues to prioritize it for on-label applications.

The Public Health Agency of Canada, which divvies up allocations of the drug among provinces and territories, said the company warned in mid-august that it was “anticipating potential supply interruptions” up to December 2021.

“The Government of Canada is working with provinces and territories to identify alternatives to mitigate the impact of the lack of supply of tocilizumab,” spokeswoman Charlaine Sleiman wrote in a statement on Friday. She said Hoffman-la Roche had provided Canada with roughly 6,648 doses of the drug to treat COVID -19 patients since March.

Fifty-six patients with COVID -19 were in Saskatchewan's intensive care units on Monday — the most ever during the pandemic — and the SHA is bracing for that number to grow to as many as 125 by the end of September.

Murthy said clinical guidelines in B.C. advise rationing the drug for patients who might benefit from it, dividing doses between patients, and potentially dividing the doses in a lottery system if needed.

“I think supply is the main thing. COVID is not going away. It's not going to be Canada-specific,” Murthy said. “Everyone is going to want to have this.”

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2021-09-22T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-09-22T07:00:00.0000000Z

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