Switzerland has changed the law to allow people to buy Viagra over the counter without a prescription as the country remains under lockdown.
The erectile dysfunction drug was included on a list of 200 medicines that people no longer need to obtain a prescription for by visiting the doctor, and instead they can now simply purchase them over the counter from the local chemist.
Swiss officials locked the country down at the end of last month, closing schools down for up to seven weeks after the country became one of the 10 most infected worldwide with coronavirus suffers.
The latest statistics from the Johns Hopkins University record 18,827 infections with a total of 536 deaths. As well as banning all private and public events and closing bars and restaurants, the government also ordered the military to enforce the restrictions on movement with 8,000 soldiers ordered to help hard-pressed local police.
The lifting of restrictions is because Switzerland is keen to move responsibility for providing medicines into the hands of the local chemist, taking pressure off doctors, which, especially in the current crisis, is critical.
The country also lifted the requirement for a doctor’s prescription for gynaecological complaints such as vaginal thrush among the list of 200 other medicines.
The move to liberalise the availability of key medicine started in 2019 when chemists were allowed to provide prescription drugs under certain conditions regarded as exceptional, and this is now been extended again in the middle of the current crisis.
A government official said that all the medicines freed from the need to have a prescription had been carefully checked first of all by officials from the Federal Department of Home Affairs (EDI).
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Story By: Michael Leidig, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Newsflash
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