The little blue pill will be sold without a prescription in the next few weeks in Irish pharmacies.
People will no longer need to provide a prescription to buy Viagra in Irish drugstores.
Viagra 50 mg will be sold in community pharmacies without needing a GP’s prescription. In addition, pre-diagnosis of erectile dysfunction (ED) by a doctor will not be required to buy the small blue pill.
However, pharmacists will assess customers to understand whether they are safe to take Viagra, just like they assess patients when they sell strong painkillers.
Also, pharmacists have urged people to gather information about the risks and benefits of Viagra before purchasing it.
The Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland – the statutory body responsible for regulating pharmacists and community pharmacies in Ireland – issued guidelines, stating that men buying Viagra pills must be over 18 years of age.
The Irish Pharmacy Union (IPU) has welcomed this move with open arms. A spokeswoman for the union said that buying Viagra from drugstores is far safer than buying it online.
“Erectile dysfunction drugs are among the medicines most often bought online,” the spokeswoman said. “Purchasing them in this way from unregulated sources can pose a major health risk to consumers.”
“They sometimes contain none of the active ingredients, or sometimes too much or too little of some ingredients, which are also of questionable quality,” she continued. “There are also other risk factors that people may not fully consider when purchasing medication online, including the importance of risk assessments.”
“Your local community pharmacist is a medicines expert,” she added. “They will ensure that any medicine you get from them is suitable for you and won’t react with any other medications you are taking.”
The move comes after it was reported that pharmacists are likely to be involved in the distribution of COVID vaccines.
Darragh O’Loughlin, IPU Secretary-General, said, “It now looks likely that the vaccine rollout in pharmacies will commence once supplies of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine are approved and available.”
Stephen Donnelly, Irish Health Minister said that all nursing homes, including residents and staff, and those who are above 70 years of age, will be vaccinated by the end of March. The article was originally published on NOVA, an Irish news outlet.
