FDA re­ports short­age of se­da­tion drug used for putting Covid-19 pa­tients on ven­ti­la­tors

The FDA on Thurs­day up­dat­ed its list of drugs in short­age to in­clude the se­da­tion drug mi­da­zo­lam, which along with oth­er seda­tives is be­ing used to treat COVID-19 pa­tients re­quir­ing me­chan­i­cal ven­ti­la­tion.

The up­dat­ed list­ings for five man­u­fac­tur­ers note an in­creased de­mand for mi­da­zo­lam and may just be the be­gin­ning of what’s to come for oth­er se­da­tion drugs too.

Michael Ganio, se­nior di­rec­tor of phar­ma­cy prac­tice and qual­i­ty at the Amer­i­can So­ci­ety for Health-Sys­tem Phar­ma­cists, told Fo­cus via email: “We have mul­ti­ple re­ports of in­creas­es in pur­chas­es and uti­liza­tion of seda­tives like mi­da­zo­lam, fen­tanyl, and propo­fol to treat COVID-19 pa­tients who re­quire me­chan­i­cal ven­ti­la­tion.”

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