PANAMA pharmacies are fast running out of  drugs with the hot potato issue being blamed on everything from a computer virus to administrative inefficiencies and outdated laws.

A La Prensa investigation .found that pharmacies in both Panama City and the interior, are reporting a shortage of a number of medications, including ones for high blood pressure and anxiety.

The President of the Association of Representatives and Distributors of Pharmaceutical Products Lucas Verzbolovskis said that the problem is due to delays within the Department of Pharmacy and Drugs of the Ministry of Health (MoH) which  is currently revising 4,000 records for the issue or renewal of permits for drugs.

Verzbolovskis said they have proposed to the government that permits be automatically extended when the drugs originate from the same factory and without any changes to The Director of Pharmacy and Drugs Jenny Vergara told La Prensa  that there are several aspects of the process that should be improved, but did not specifically mention the permitting process. She said that the problem is mainly due to a lack of personnel.

Earlier the MInister of Health Miguel Mayo had blamed a computer virus for the problem leading to thousands of documents having to be processed by hand.

"We had a problem in the Department of Pharmacy and Drugs a virus problem in the computer Processing dropped almost to zero and we had to work manually for two months. [This] aggravated the situation, but it  is already remedied," Mayo said in a meeting with journalists, without giving further details about the incident.

The minister said , the present shortage is also due to the current outdated  law governing approval of  medicines.

"The law of medications is very good but you have to modernize it. When it became [the standard], there were drugs that had not been created so  were not included in how the approvals were granted," he said.