COVID-19 exposes Australia’s drug supply ‘house of cards’
Dr Simon Quilty says vital drugs should be made locally as a back-up
The threat of a COVID-19 pandemic has exposed Australia’s reliance on overseas drug manufacturing as a “house of cards”, doctors say.
Essential medicines, such as insulin, should be produced locally to protect Australians from the impact of crises like COVID-19, says Dr Simon Quilty, a national security researcher and a general physician at Alice Springs Hospital.
“We can’t even make paracetamol here,” says Dr Quilty, a fellow at the Institute for Integrated Economic Research Australia, a national security thinktank.
“A lot of the time, China makes the active pharmaceutical ingredients, then the next stop is India, where they’re turned into actual pills and vials.”
