00:00So there's two main changes that the TGA has introduced, as you mentioned.
00:06So the first is that packs sold in supermarkets and places other than pharmacies will reduce
00:11from a maximum of 20 tablets to 16 tablets per pack.
00:16And the second change is in states, all states other than Queensland and Western Australia,
00:21you will see that packs larger than 50 tablets will move from being in front of the pharmacy
00:27counter to being sold behind the counter, and you will need to ask your pharmacist
00:32to request that medication.
00:35In Queensland and Western Australia, any packs smaller than 16 tablets will be moved behind
00:40the pharmacist counter, so in those states people will need to be asking their pharmacist
00:47in order to access any pack sizes with 16 tablets or more.
00:51These changes have come across as we were seeing an increase in the number of poisonings
00:57with paracetamol, so on average we're seeing about 225 people hospitalised with liver injury
01:05each year from paracetamol, as well as about 50 people who are dying from paracetamol overdose.
01:13And over the last few years we have also seen an increase in the number of poisonings, particularly
01:19among young people, so the TGA put out an expert review to really evaluate some of the
01:26trends and the evidence around what interventions might be best to really reduce some of these
01:32harms.
01:33Most manufacturers have already been in the process of reducing pack sizes, so you will
01:38likely have already seen over the last few months that the pack size of paracetamol has
01:44reduced, and you would have already seen over the weekend, I walked into a pharmacy
01:49myself over the weekend, and you can see that the displays of paracetamol, which were previously
01:54at the front counter, have now been moved behind the counter.
01:58These changes really bring Australia in line with some of the other countries, so in countries
02:04such as Denmark and Ireland and the United Kingdom, they've actually introduced smaller
02:10pack sizes a number of years ago and really evaluated the impact of reducing pack sizes,
02:17so after the introduction of these new pack sizes, these countries did observe reductions
02:23in the number of harms.
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