Alberta set to receive children’s pain medication

A long-delayed shipment of kids pain meds may be getting closer to arriving in Alberta.

Health Canada has granted tentative import approval to ibuprofen that Alberta ordered from turkey in December. That comes two weeks after similar thumbs-up for the province’s order of acetaminophen.

The first 250 bottles were shipped to hospitals in January. However, there’s still no timeline for the remaining 4.75 million bottles, ten weeks after the deal was first announced.

The shipment was intended to ease the crunch of flu season, which has since passed. But Alberta’s health minister is optimistic the supply will be here soon.

“It’s been working with the supplier in terms of labeling and in terms of child proof caps in terms of making sure they have all the documentation, that is quite frankly taking quite some time to do that, but I’m optimistic that in the next couple of weeks well see a shipment of the acetaminophen and then we’re still working through on the ibuprofen,” said Jason Copping, Alberta’s health minister.

Copping has previously said the meds won’t expire anytime soon and will be safe for next year’s flu season if need be.