Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — Several children’s medications including amoxicillin are not available at the hospital’s pharmacy.

This was confirmed by Samoa News with several doctors, who for fear of repercussions the doctors opted to remain anonymous.

Samoa News has reached out to hospital Chief Executive Officer, Moefaauo Bill Emmsley for comments on the predicament at the hospital. According to the physicians, the shortage of children’s antibiotics started last month due to the increasing cases of flu-like symptoms in children.

“There are alternate medications available but doctors prefer amoxicillin,” said one senior physician. “We were told the medication would be restocked very soon.”

The issue of medication supply was addressed in December, during a press conference with the media, with Acting Medical Director Dr. Ledua Akapusi citing a survey conducted at the hospital that uncovered the high number of children and elders with underlying health conditions receiving medical care in the hospital with flu-like symptoms over the past weeks.

However it was confirmed in a recent press conference at the hospital that these are not respiratory syncytial virus RSV cases.

“And we are seeing this mainly with our pediatric population. We have conducted tests on all of our patients that have presented with flu-like illnesses to see whether these are RSV cases, as we know this has been an issue in the United States.”

In December, Dr Ledua said there's a new flu in the territory.

 “The only thing that we know is that there have been a lot of people being affected by the flu and it’s affecting children more.

 “And it is also affecting the adults who are already immune compromised.

 “These are the kind of patients that are coming to the emergency room in addition to the other illnesses and other symptoms that come to the emergency room; those that have other medical issues and problems and complications … those are the kinds of cases that regularly come to our emergency room, in addition to the increase in flu cases,” explained Dr. Ledua.

The issue of medication further came up last month and the Acting CMO said the hospital had not run out of supplies.

“However recently we are stretching our medication because of this increase [in flu-like illnesses], especially for the pediatric population.

 “So medication for the pediatric population, I know we are waiting now for the next shipment of our medication to try and prevent any unnecessary shortage of medication, as almost all these children, they started off with flu-like illness and they develop an infection that is treated with antibiotics.”

He said that flu-like illnesses are not treated with antibiotics right away — it is mainly supportive therapy like taking Tylenol for pain but sometimes you reach a stage where those remedies do not work.

 “And that is when parents bring the children back to the hospital as the children need oral antibiotics so we are stretching out our antibiotics and now medication and we are seeing an increased usage in all of our antibiotics — especially for our pediatric population,” said Dr. Ledua at the time.