Parents who are waiting for Alberta pharmacies and hospitals to restock on children's medicine won't have to wait too much longer. 

Last Friday (Dec. 30), Health Canada approved the importation of over five-million bottles of children's medicine purchased by the Alberta government from a Turkish supplier. 

This comes just under a month since Premier Danielle Smith announced the initial acquisition of the medicine on December 6. 

The announcement was a critical first step, but the medicine first had to be approved by Health Canada.

In a statement, Health Canada described what they look for when analyzing the importation of medicine. 

"Health Canada’s top priority is the health and safety of people in Canada. Each proposal to import a foreign-authorized product undergoes careful review by Health Canada." 

Among the things that are reviewed are: 

  • Safety, effectiveness, and quality of the product
  • Packaging and labelling information provide correct cautions, dosing directions, and ingredients that are available in both English and French. 

The product that will be imported is a children's pain and fever medication under the name of Parol, which is approved for children aged 2 to 11. The province will be importing the medicine for hospitals but they also plan on reselling bottles to pharmacies as well as other provinces. 

At this moment, the Alberta government is working together with Health Canada on exact timelines for when the medicine will be available but, with approval now out of the way, things should start to move a bit faster.