Our technology platform, expertise and data are currently fully mobilized to serve:

  • French and European health authorities on the monitoring of visits to pharmacies and the evolution of drug consumption in the population

  • from the international network GIHSN (Global Influenza Hospital Surveillance Network) - a public-private partnership under the aegis of the Foundation for Influenza Epidemiology combining resources from the US and Chinese CDCs and mobilising around 100 hospitals in 23 countries - which generates epidemiological and virological data on patients hospitalised with acute respiratory illness

  • from our European partners in Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Poland, with whom we are working to set up in the very short term, in the framework of a European call, a sentinel observatory for monitoring the spread of non-severe cases of Covid-19, key in monitoring the crisis

Objectives of the study

This study, conducted over the period S8 and S12 2020 for the EPI-PHARE group of the ANSM, mobilises data from a large pharmacy panel (nearly 11,000 pharmacies, i.e. more than one in two French pharmacies) collected and processed daily in a fully industrialised and auditable manner.

The main objective of the study is to highlight the resilience of the network, its capacity of the pharmacy network to absorb - in a sudden and brutal way - an increase in the number of visits to pharmacies in the context of the containment measures that came into force at 12:00 on 17/03/2020.

Discussion: through this study, OpenHealth wishes to recall the French specificity of its pharmacy network which must be considered as a regulatory lever in the measures of the next days to prevent any saturation of our care system.

Synthesis of results and discussion

- Very significant increases from S8 to S12 2020 compared to last year, mainly driven by non-prescription

- Less marked evolutions in the West, much more significant in the East and especially in Ile-de-France

- Constantly increasing evolutions over the weeks

- A week S12 2020 marked by a very strong increase in passages, concentrated on Monday 16 and Tuesday 17, particularly on non-prescription.

Discussion

- These elements demonstrate the capacity to mobilise the pharmacy network in the short term and in a brutal manner as well as its resilience in the current context.

- This network - in daily contact with the entire population - is a key lever for efficiency in health crisis management. In concrete terms, dispensing pharmacists could be mobilised in the short term to carry out a massive testing campaign and/or to be the platform for the dissemination of health products within the local territory.

Since S8 2020, the total number of additional passes in pharmacies is constantly increasing

Source: OpenHealth extrapolated panel; data updated to 22/03/2020 at 07:50

In-total-these-last-5-weeks-while-13.5-million-additional-passes-in-officine-are-observed-the-network-is-not-saturated

Comparison of the cumulative weeks from S8 2020 (starting Monday 17/02/2020) to S12 2020 (stopped on Friday 20/03/2020)

Source: OpenHealth extrapolated panel; data updated to 22/03/2020 at 07:50

This last week, the number of passages doubled on the single day of Monday 16 March before retracting abruptly on Friday 20 March

Source: OpenHealth extrapolated panel; data updated to 22/03/2020 at 07:50

This excess of visits to pharmacies is observed throughout the national territory and is particularly marked in the IDF and Grand-Est

Comparison of the cumulative weeks from S8 2020 (starting on Monday 17/02/2020) to S12 2020 (stopped on Friday 20/03/2020)

Source: OpenHealth extrapolated panel; data updated to 22/03/2020 at 07:50

Non-prescription pharmacy visits mainly explain this change

Comparison of the cumulative weeks from S8 2020 (starting on Monday 17/02/2020) to S12 2020 (stopped on Friday 20/03/2020)

Source: OpenHealth extrapolated panel; data updated to 22/03/2020 at 07:50

Literacy

1 - The data source: OHC Extrapolated Panel

- OHC (OpenHealth Company) collects and processes 100% of sales receipts from 10,966 pharmacies (Selfcare, dermocosmetics, prescription, veterinary, etc.)

- The OHC panel is representative of the national universe in terms of overall turnover, area of location, VAT structure

- OHC sell-out data (national and territorial) is based on a single panel

- A particularly representative panel of large Selfcare pharmacies:

> The multi-layered model is a multidimensional model of the pharmacy universe. There are as many aspects of dimensions as there are stratification criteria

> The panel was strengthened on pharmacies over €5M. (68% panelist coverage on this group of pharmacies)

2 - Definition of study indicators

3 - Methodology of the study

Product scope: All products dispensed in city pharmacies

Geographic scope : Metropolitan France excluding Corsica
Geographic granularity : Administrative regions and Total

Time scope: weeks S5 to S12 2019 and 2020
Time granularity : weekly
Definitions of a week : from Monday at 00:00 until Sunday at 23:59
Definition of a weekly comparison : evolution between a week in the year 2020 with the same week number in the year 2019
Study start date: S8 2020, starting on Monday 17/02/2020
Sales for weeks S11 and S12 2020 are estimates, and in fact are not yet fixed

Indicators:
- Number of dispensations in total, off- and on-prescription
- Sales volumes in consumer units (boxes) in total, off- and on-prescription
Additional: difference for each of these 2 indicators, over a given period, between the observed value with the observed value over the same period in year N-1


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