U.S. Suffers Shortage of Crucial Coronavirus Drugs Made in China, India

The United States is suffering a shortage of crucial drugs to help fight the coronavirus in American patients because they are predominately imported from China and India.

A report by the Boston Globe details the degree to which American hospitals are suffering from a shortage of antibiotics, sedatives, and other drugs needed to help coronavirus patients but that are almost entirely manufactured in China and India.

The Globe reports:

Hospitals in regions experiencing a surge of coronavirus patients are struggling to maintain supplies of antibiotics, antivirals, sedatives required for patients on ventilators, and other drugs produced in countries where the coronavirus has shuttered or curbed manufacturing. [Emphasis added]

…

The shortages highlight heavy US dependence on bulk drug ingredients and finished medicines manufactured in China, India, and Europe, medical experts say, but also the FDA’s limited ability to monitor global supply chains. If supply conditions worsen, a lack of sedative and paralytic drugs needed to safely intubate patients with severe respiratory failure could prove just as critical as a lack of ventilators, said specialists. [Emphasis added]

Industry insiders have said close to 90 percent of the pharmaceutical ingredients for generic drugs imported to the U.S. arrive from factories based overseas. Nearly 50 percent of these factories are in China and India.

The Chinese coronavirus has exposed America’s enormous reliance on foreign imports, via a more than three-decades-long free trade agenda, for the most basic of supplies like plastic bottles and rubber gloves.

As Breitbart News reported, while American manufacturers have ramped up production of hand sanitizer, they are suffering from a shortage of plastic lids and bottles to put the sanitizer in. The U.S. imports about $1.1 billion worth of plastic bottles and $7.5 billion worth of plastic lids every year — the plurality of which arrives from China, Canada, and Mexico.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.