Dear Editor,
We would like to reply to the letter by Dr Chirumbolo who commented on our paper on drug prescriptions for older Italian citizens during the first year of SARS-CoV-2 pandemic [1, 2].
Dr Chirumbolo raises issues on data presented in our paper; in particular, he claims that we dismissed the high prevalence of paracetamol use for treating coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and underlines that paracetamol was not even mentioned in our paper. He concludes that an incomplete picture of drug prescription makes it hard to comprehend the development of COVID-19 pandemic.
First, the aim of our study was to evaluate the impact of the pandemic on drug prescriptions for chronic diseases and not on medications for the treatment of COVID-19; second, we clearly reported in the methods of the study that we analyzed data on medications reimbursed by the National Health System, in which paracetamol is excluded. The lack of data on non-reimbursed drugs is also reported in the limitations of the study.
Further, we specified that only drugs dispensed by community pharmacies were included in the analyses, making impossible the comparison with studies on medication use during hospitalization cited by Chirumbolo. Even harder to understand is the hypothesis that we included paracetamol in the NSAID category given that according to the ACT classification, paracetamol is included in the antipyretic category.
Finally, medicines used for COVID-19 were subjected to a specific monitoring, based on no-individual data and available at the following link https://www.aifa.gov.it/en/monitoraggio-uso-farmaci-durante-epidemia-covid-19. Moreover, National Report on Medicine use in 2021 reported for the time period 2015–2021 data on antipyretics’ use, although without the individual level [3].
Data availability
It is not applicable
Declarations
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References
- 1.Chirumbolo S (2023) Paracetamol: should we hide it within the NSAID category to dismiss its real infodemiology analysis? Aging Clin Exp Res. 10.1007/s40520-023-02373-3 [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed]
- 2.Marengoni A, Cangini A, Pierantozzi A, et al. Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on medication use in the older Italian population. Aging Clin Exp Res. 2023;35:443–453. doi: 10.1007/s40520-022-02303-9. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 3.Agenzia Italiana del Farmaco (2022) Osservatorio Nazionale sull’impiego dei Medicinali. L’uso dei Farmaci in Italia. Rapporto Nazionale Anno 2021 https://www.aifa.gov.it/documents/20142/1740782/Rapporto-OsMed-2021.pdf. Accessed 20 Feb 2023
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Data Availability Statement
It is not applicable