Nuclear radiation, Finland urges people to buy iodine

The government of Finland has provided new recommendations for the population in case of nuclear radiation. This country has advised people between the ages of 4 and 40 and pregnant women to keep a supply of iodine pills.

Following this warning by the Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, pharmacies in Finland have exhausted the reserves of iodine tablets within hours. As this minister explains in a statement, there are currently no iodine tablets for children under three years of age for sale in Finland.

Currently, the Nordic country has a massive network of civil protection shelters, large strategic reserves of supplies and emergency protocols to face almost every case. The authorities' main advice continues to be housing in closed environments, “because it is the most effective way to reduce radiation exposure”. Taking iodit tablets would be “a preliminary secondary supplementary measure”, the text published by the ministry said.

In fact, the demand for this product, for which no recipe is required, was so high that the online site of the country's largest pharmacies, Yliopiston Appteekki, fell temporarily.

Finland is not the only country near Russia and Ukraine to suffer from the consequences of a nuclear attack. In August, the Romanian government also called on its population to also buy iodine pills. In that case, the authorities ' concern was not so much focused on the possible use of nuclear weapons, but on a <x0 nuclear disaster” at the Ukrainian plant in Zaporizia, which is constantly surrounded by Russian forces, despite the risk it poses.