The coronavirus outbreak has some Americans worried about a potential drug shortage.
The FDA says there's only a shortage of one, non-critical drug in the U.S. due to Corona, but officials warn of a potential shortage in critical medical supplies. China produces many of the common drugs we get at the pharmacy.
“And those drugs could include antibiotics, ibuprofen, heparin,” says Margaret Kidd, an instructional professor and supply chain expert at the University of Houston. She says the outbreak impacts Chinese manufacturers. “The transport bottlenecks, the shortages of raw materials, staff absences due to the quarantines, and a limit on production capacity at factories.”
FDA officials say they're monitoring more than a dozen drugs that come from China, but they aren't saying specifically which drugs.