<\/p>\n
\nPhoto: RNZ \/Dom Thomas\n<\/p>\n
Stocks of the prescription-only painkiller codeine are in short supply due to shipping delays.<\/p>\n
Pharmac today confirmed the supply issue affected all three strengths of the subsidised Noumed brand codeine.<\/p>\n
The next shipment was expected to arrive in the mid-November but it could take another one to two weeks for products to reach pharmacies around the country.<\/p>\n
The drug-funding agency said there was currently no stock of 30mg tablets, and low stocks of both 15mg and 60mg.<\/p>\n
Additional stock ‘overlabelled’<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, some other supplies of 15mg and 30mg codeine tablets are being dispatched to wholesalers this week after being re-labelled with a new expiry date.<\/p>\n
Previously, codeine tablets in New Zealand had a 24-month shelf-life from the date of manufacture – but this was changed to 36 months in July.<\/p>\n
“The supplier held stock of codeine phosphate tablets that was labelled with a 24-month expiry date,” Pharmac said.<\/p>\n
“Medsafe fast-tracked an approval to over-label this stock with the 36-month shelf-life to ensure people can still access this medicine.”<\/p>\n
This over-labelled stock will start being distributed to wholesalers by the end of this week.<\/p>\n
“We have prepared a flier to reassure people that the over-labelled product is safe and effective.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: RNZ \/Dom Thomas Stocks of the prescription-only painkiller codeine are in short supply due to shipping delays.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136939,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[643,2158,103,61,60,371,43,2159,2157,2155,2156],"class_list":["post-136938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-medication","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}