Sales of Tamiflu and other antiviral drugs have jumped, and demand for protective masks has outpaced supply after the country’s first swine flu-related deaths, drugstore chains said.
“Over the past days of active demand for flu medicines, drugstores are selling out in two hours the amounts it previously took a week to sell,” said Andrei Gusev, chief executive officer of Rigla, Russia’s No. 2 drugstore chain.
Rigla, the retail unit of drug wholesaler Protek, said Tamiflu revenue jumped fourfold between Oct. 24 and Oct. 30. Sales of Arbidol, an antiviral medicine produced in Russia, doubled in the period.
Pharmacy Chain 36.6, Russia’s largest drugstore chain, said Tamiflu revenue more than doubled in October, compared with the year-earlier period. Arbidol sales rose 40 percent.
Russia reported its first swine flu deaths two weeks ago, with the toll rising to 19 people as of Nov. 2, the country’s public health watchdog said Friday. More than 3,100 people were infected with swine flu.
Supplies of protective masks are dwindling, 36.6 and Protek said. Demand for the masks grew tenfold compared with August, 36.6 said.
Meanwhile, a one-week school holiday that began on Nov. 2 was extended until Nov. 15 because of the seasonal flu epidemic, and authorities may decide to keep schools closed even longer if the public-health situation doesn’t improve, Deputy Mayor Lyudmila Shvetsova said Friday. In the week to Nov. 1, 166,129 Muscovites fell ill with flu and acute respiratory viral infection, 105,746 of them children, RIA-Novosti said. This was an increase of 57.2 percent from a week earlier and 2.6 times higher than the year-earlier period.
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