<\/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":132400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[48,47,134,524,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-132399","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-medication","12":"tag-new-zealand","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-newzealand","15":"tag-nz","16":"tag-podcasts","17":"tag-public-radio","18":"tag-radio-new-zealand","19":"tag-rnz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}