Flu Season Starts At Its Fastest Pace Since 2009 — Canada And Parts Of The U.S. Are Now Facing A Tylenol, Advil Shortage

The U.S. flu season is already off to a fast start as children return to schools, less mask-wearing and travel returns to COVID-19 pre-pandemic norms.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported the flu is already high in 17 states and the hospitalization rate hadn’t been this high this early since the 2009 swine flu pandemic. It is currently the range between 23,000 to 48,000 hospitalizations from Oct. 1, 2022 through Nov. 5, 2022.

The flu season is typically at its highest in the fall months as well as December and January, with the Southeast and South-Central areas of the country reporting the highest levels of activity followed by the Mid-Atlantic and the South-Central West Coast regions as of Nov. 5, 2022.

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What Happened: After lockdowns nearly flattened RSV cases during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, a wave of RSV cases rebounded in the summer of 2021, which is an uncommon time for the flu to spread, per Wall Street Journal.

With a surge of respiratory viruses (RSV) filling hospital beds, the flu season is already causing shortages of Tylenol and Advil in Canada and parts of the U.S., which all started with a spring shortage of a specific brand of acetaminophen.

Additionally, regulations mandating that all medications sold in Canada be labeled in both French and English make it increasingly difficult to import supplies from other countries, per Wall Street Journal. The Canadian government has been forced to issue emergency orders to allow for the import of acetaminophen and ibuprofen supplies from the U.S. and Australia, which may not have both languages on the labels.

Johnson & Johnson JNJ, the maker of children’s Tylenol, has boosted production at its manufacturing plant in Guelph, Ontario, running 24 hours a day 7 days a week to maximize production.

Why It Matters: Canadians were crossing the border in hopes of finding pain and fever medication at local pharmacies in Buffalo, New York, reported U.S. News.

Don Arthur at Brighton Eggert Pharmacy in New York said, “What we are hearing from JNJ is that it is not a raw material or manufacturing facility issue, rather it is an issue of demand.”

As prescriptions are not necessary for acetaminophen and ibuprofen, customers can walk in a store and stock up on an unnecessary amount which could contribute to further supply constraints.

Photo: Dragana Gordic via Shutterstock