The Pfizer emblem is displayed on the outside of a former Pfizer manufacturing facility, on May 4, 2014, within the Brooklyn borough of New York.

Mark Lennihan/AP

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Mark Lennihan/AP

The Pfizer emblem is displayed on the outside of a former Pfizer manufacturing facility, on May 4, 2014, within the Brooklyn borough of New York.

Mark Lennihan/AP

Pfizer is going through a scarcity of penicillin as a result of elevated demand and extra diagnoses of syphilis, the corporate mentioned in a letter to its prospects this week.

The firm mentioned there may be an “impending stock out situation” for choose Bicillin L-A and Bicillin C-R prefilled syringes, Pfizer’s model identify of injectable penicillin.

Prefilled Bicillin L-A pediatric syringes are anticipated to start operating low by the top of June, whereas all Bicillin C-R syringes might start diminishing within the third quarter of this 12 months.

Inventory is predicted to start out recovering within the second and third quarters of 2024, Pfizer mentioned.

Penicillin is an antibiotic used to deal with varied sorts of infections, together with sexually transmitted illnesses, comparable to syphilis and pneumonia.

Syphilis charges have been at a historic low from 2000 to 2001, however have elevated yearly since, with a rise of 28.6% from 2020 to 2021, which was doubtless exacerbated by an interruption in remedy and prevention because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention mentioned.

The shortage of penicillin comes amid a long-term scarcity of prescribed drugs the U.S. has been experiencing for the final decade, often because of disruptions within the provide chain, just like the one brought on by the pandemic, Marta Wosińska, a visiting fellow at The Brookings Institution, told NPR earlier this year.

Other prescriptions, comparable to Adderall and kids’s flu medicine have additionally been in short supply.