A shortage of birth control pills means that a particular version of the pill will be hard to come by in the north for the time being.
Translation by Traci White
Fiona Westerhof, the spokesperson for the Groningen Pharmacists Union, told Dagblad van het Noorden that a number of regional pharmacies are running out of Microgynon 30 and non-name brand versions of the same medication.
The shortage is only impacting this specific type of pill, but switching from one type of birth control medication to another is not so simple due to the hormonal composition of the pills and their side effects.
The companies that produce the components of the pill are located in Asian countries such as China, India and Turkey. A large batch of Microgynon 30 was recently rejected, which means that Dutch pharmacies are not getting a shipment they were counting on. Pharmacies are working through their remaining stocks at the moment, and the shortage is not expected to last very long.
Dagblad van het Noorden writes that the Dutch market is traditionally less attractive for large pharmaceutical companies due to the country selling drugs for unusually low prices. The low prices are dictated by strict health insurance policies in the Netherlands.
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