Updated 3.40pm with ministry statement
Scabies medication is back in stock following a nine-week absence, the health ministry has confirmed.
It said that a "sudden increase" in demand earlier this year depleted the stockpile of medicine.
"The Central Procurement and Supplies Unit immediately started a new procurement cycle to replenish stocks and now scabies medicines are in stock. CPSU is building up a 6-month stock again," it said.
The Maltese Association of Dermatology and Venereology (MADV) and the Malta Association of Public Health Medicine (MAPHM) had complained last month that an outbreak of scabies, an infestation of tiny mites in the skin, was going untreated because the country lacked the required medication.
“We can’t treat patients, we have nothing to treat them with except empty promises,” an MADV spokesperson said at the time.
Scabies is spread by normal human contact or contact with an infected material and treatment involves medication that can be applied to the skin or taken orally.
The availability of the medication – Permethrin cream and Ivermectin tablets – was inconsistent for the past nine weeks as the medicine, like many others, lacks sufficient procurement policies, the MADV said.
During the shortage, the MADV expressed its frustration that the shortage's “critical level” did not exist elsewhere in Europe and had never dragged on for such a long period.
“This is ongoing. This last episode is just part of a series,” a MADV spokesperson said, as they expect the recent shortage to be a single link in a chain of medication scarcity.
While stocking medication based on how many people needed it last month may work for chronic diseases, highly infectious conditions need to be over-stocked to avoid outbreak-caused shortages, the spokesperson said.
“When you are talking about highly infectious conditions... you need to consult the people who are dealing with it on the frontline. And then they need to not stock month by month, but stock for the next six months so they can be flexible.
“You have to multiply the affected people by 10 when organising stock,” the MADV explained as, when treating for infections such as scabies, all of a patient's close contacts need to undergo treatment to ensure that the cycle of spreading is closed off.
“Even if they are not feeling itchy, we still need to treat them,” they said.
Between January and March, 64 cases of scabies have been recorded.
Questions regarding future procurement policies and current stock have been sent to the health ministry.