Business for SA (B4SA) on Wednesday warned that the escalating medicine supply crisis in KwaZulu-Natal has the potential to destabilise supplies throughout SA if the violence and looting in the province is not swiftly brought under control.
The entire medicine supply chain has been disrupted in the province, with key distributors, wholesalers and pharmacies destroyed or rendered inoperable by the violence, sending health facilities and patients scrambling to find supplies.
The unrest has also brought Durban harbour to a standstill, a situation that if not quickly resolved could disrupt imports of raw and finished pharmaceutical products, said B4SA health spokesperson Stavros Nicolaou.
B4SA is an association of businesses created to support the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
More than 90 pharmacies, including several owned by retail chains Clicks and Dis-Chem as well as independent operators, have been looted or destroyed in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng in recent days as protests in the wake of the jailing of former president Jacob Zuma spiralled into civil unrest.
Several warehouses and distributors, including Clicks-owned United Pharmaceutical Distributors, have been looted and trucks that ordinarily transport medicines directly from pharmaceutical manufacturers in Johannesburg to public health facilities have been unable to reach the province after parts of the N3 highway were closed.
The disruption to private sector pharmacies has affected the government’s chronic medicine dispensing programme, which partners with private sector providers to alleviate congestion at public health facilities.
Vaccines
Nicolaou warned that while it was possible to transport medicines to KwaZulu-Natal from other parts of the country, if the situation persisted, it could destabilise medicine supplies throughout SA.
The unrest has stalled the provision of coronavirus vaccines in KwaZulu-Natal, and a decision has been made to reallocate stock earmarked for the province to other parts of the country, he said.
KwaZulu-Natal reached a daily tally of close to 40,000 vaccines by the end of last week, but administered only 2,691 on Wednesday.
“The fact that there is a reallocation of vaccine doses out of KwaZulu-Natal to other parts of the country tells you things are not expected to settle in KwaZulu-Natal this week,” Nicolaou said.
On Tuesday night, Netcare said it was flying emergency supplies and personnel from Gauteng to KwaZulu-Natal. Similar steps were taken by Clicks.
Clicks said 50 of its stores in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng had been looted, and all of its stores and pharmacies in central KwaZulu-Natal remained closed on Wednesday. Only those in the far northern and southern parts of the province were open.
Dis-Chem CFO Rui Morais said that two of its stores in KwaZulu-Natal and one in Gauteng had been looted. “It is obviously a very fluid situation, and at the moment our priority is to protect our assets. The supply chain is completely disrupted: we cannot move stock from our Durban distribution centre to our stores,” he said.
Dis-Chem is considering bringing in private security to protect its distribution centre near Durban. It is too soon to assess the financial effect of the unrest, he said.
Pharmacy Council registrar Vincent Tlala said the disruption had been so severe that it posed a risk to patients who depended on the public and private healthcare sector, including people with chronic medication, who might not be able to refill prescriptions. People with diabetes, hypertension, epilepsy and psychiatric disorders were particularly vulnerable, he said.
“We appeal to the public to protect pharmacies. The long-term effects of destroying pharmacies are far-reaching.”
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