[e-drug] Scarcity of essential (?) medicines (3)

["Valeria Frighi" <valeria.frighi@psych.ox.ac.uk>]

E-DRUG:  Scarcity of essential (?) medicines (3)
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Hi Atieno

I based my earlier message on the assumption that risperidone injections
might not be available in Kenyatta Hospital, while other older drugs
like flupenthixol or haloperidol were likely to be.

If risperidone injections are also available, maybe losing good old
injectable chlorpromazine really is not disastrous. 
In the UK, my "outsider's experience" (I mean a physician among
psychiatrists) is that chlorpromazine is hardly ever used nowadays,
either in oral or parenteral form. Risperidone has also the advantage of
being less diabetogenic than chlorpromazine ("medical" -meaning non
psychiatric or neurological- side effects profile differs between the
two drugs) and that it exists in a depot formulation (the only "second
generation" antipsychotic available in this form). Obviously this is a
major advantage when medication adherence is a problem.

I hope this is helpful. Maybe some psychiatrists, particularly from
developing countries, could also give some help?

Valeria

------------------------------------------
Dr Valeria Frighi
University Dept. of Psychiatry
Neurosciences Building
Warneford Hospital
Oxford
OX3 7JX
UK

Tel. -44 -1865 -223779
       07974920013
Fax -44 -1865 251076
"Valeria Frighi" <valeria.frighi@psych.ox.ac.uk>