Walgreens, CVS limit sales of children’s medications amid ‘tripledemic’

CVS and Walgreens are limiting how many children’s pain relief medications people can buy at once amid a winter “tripledemic” of respiratory viruses, the companies said Monday.

In a statement, CVS said it is limiting the number of pain relief medications to two. Walgreens customers can buy six over-the-counter pediatric fever reducers, the company said in a statement.

“Due to increased demand and various supplier challenges, over-the-counter pediatric fever reducing products are seeing constraint across the country,” Walgreens said.

The cap applies to products bought online or at the pharmacies, the companies said.

Walmart said in a statement that although the company has seen higher demand for pediatric medication this year, it has been able to meet that demand and no purchase limits are in place.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services said the agency had been tracking surging demand for medication.

“Every operating division across HHS is engaged and playing a pivotal role in addressing these concerns,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

In a separate statement, the Food and Drug Administration added that it can’t require companies to manufacture medications, but it is working closely with drugmakers to “understand, mitigate and prevent or reduce the impact of intermittent or increased demand of certain products.

“The FDA understands that manufacturers expect availability to continue to increase in the near future,” the statement said.

Doctors this fall saw an early surge in respiratory illnesses among young children, with babies and preschool-age kids catching the flu and other viruses, including respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV.