At the beginning of the summer, the National Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM) recalled certain batches of drugs based on valsartan (usually prescribed for‘hypertension orheart failure) due to presence of impurities in the active substance.
About half of the drugs based on valsartan (alone or in combination with another molecule, hydrochlorothiazide) marketed in France are affected by this defect. Also “supply tensions” are expected from September in pharmacies. The ANSM has therefore just sent its recommendations to health professionals. She asks them not to prescribe the drug to patients who have never been treated with valsartan. And to reserve the stocks available only to patients treated for:
• heart failure not controlled by another sartan, post myocardial infarction
• arterial hypertension balanced thanks to a combination therapy comprising valsartan.
“For other patients, doctors should consider another equivalent treatment with regard to the recommendations of the Haute Autorité de Santé (HAS) and the French Society of Arterial Hypertension (SFHTA)” declares the ANSM in a press release.
If your medicine is no longer available in pharmacies in September, talk to your doctor or ask your pharmacist to contact him in order to find an alternative treatment.
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