Demand of COVID-19 medicines without prescription among community pharmacies in Jodhpur, India: Findings and implications

Abstract

Background: COVID-19 pandemic led to increased self-medication of antimicrobials, vitamins, and immune boosters among the common people and consuming without prescription can lead to adverse consequences including antimicrobial resistance. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on community pharmacies in Jodhpur, India. They were inquired regarding the prescription and increased sales (<25%, 25—50%, 50--75%, or 75--100%) of various medicines (Hydroxychloroquine, Azithromycin, Ivermectin, and Vitamin C) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Logistic regression analysis was conducted to assess the relationship between requests for certain COVID-19 medications and an increase in their sale. Results: A total of 204 pharmacies took part, and 88.23% reported patients to approach them without prescriptions. Most of the pharmacies revealed that <25% of patients came without prescription. The majority came for azithromycin (68%) and vitamin C (92%). Increased sales of the four targeted medications were seen by 85.92% of pharmacies compared to last year. A majority (51.5%) reported <25% increased sales of azithromycin, but no change in the sale of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin. However, 39.6% reported >75% increase in vitamin C sales. Conclusion: There was an increase in the demand for COVID-19 medications without prescription. This study was unable to detect a significant increase in sales of antimicrobials, which is encouraging.

Use of antimicrobials during the COVID-19 pandemic: A qualitative study among stakeholders in Nepal

“…Our finding has been corroborated by several other studies from Asian and African countries [52][53][54]. Private pharmacies and dispensers comprised the larger chunk of informal prescription and sales of OTC medicines to these patients; this finding echoes with several previous reports [55][56][57]. Other reasons behind informal prescriptions were patients' self-medications and induced pressure on dispensers, which were often guided by their close-contact and social media.…”

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Pandemic across Africa: Current Status of Vaccinations and Implications for the Future

“…Several re-purposed medicines were proposed for the prevention and management of patients with COVID-19 in the absence of effective vaccines. These included hydroxychloroquine, lopinavir/ritonavir, ivermectin, remdesivir, and steroids [19][20][21][22][23][24], with their endorsement resulting in appreciably increased utilisation, especially hydroxychloroquine, fuelled by social media and other activities [16,20,[25][26][27][28]. This surge was despite limited evidence regarding their effectiveness, apart from dexamethasone, initially and in subsequent studies, with their overuse increasing morbidity, mortality, and costs [16,26,[29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37].…”

Medication Adherence in Children with Down Syndrome with Autoimmune Thyroid Disease During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Indonesian Study

“…However, if not used as intended, it can lead to serious problems such as drug toxicity, drug interactions, drug dependence, microbial resistance and wasted medical resources. 29 Unfortunately there has been a marked increase in self-medications without prescription during the pandemic (31).…”