Asia

lack of medicines for chronic diseases and basic care

Pharmacists in the capital “advise” not to get sick or to apply preventive measures as in the times of Covid-19, such as masks and distancing. The emptying of shelves is due to Western sanctions and critical problems in domestic production. For the Minister of Health, there is no emergency and he announces the elimination of special rates in foreign currencies.

Tehran () – “The only advice I would like to give citizens is to avoid getting sick because, in short, we do not have medicines to cure them.” In the words of Hossein Behmanesh, a pharmacist from Tehran, interviewed by the IranWire site, the picture of the harsh economic and social crisis that Iran is going through emerges. Hence the invitation, as in the early phases of the Covid-19 pandemic, when there were no vaccines or cures to combat the virus, to put into practice “preventive measures that include the use of masks and avoiding crowded places.” “Take care of yourselves,” warns Behmanesh, “because we can’t help you.”

The Islamic Republic, in the center of the news due to the arrest of the Italian journalist Cecilia Sala, locked up for more than three weeks in the Evin prison, on the outskirts of the capital, and for some time in the crosshairs of The United States and Israel suffer from widespread shortages of medicines. An emergency that affects several provinces where there is a shortage of both common medications and specialized treatments for chronic diseases such as diabetes, hemophilia, cancer and multiple sclerosis. The emptying of shelves is not only due to the blockage of supplies from abroad due to harsh Western sanctions against the ayatollah regime, since there are also critical problems in national production, with stocks almost reduced to zero in areas such as Sistan and Balochistan, Khuzestan and Isfahan.

The current shortage reflects supply problems, but the crisis in the sector began in 2022, when the administration of then-president Ebrahim Raisi eliminated the exchange rate of 42 thousand rials per US dollar set for the import of medicines. According to a study by Iran’s Parliamentary Research Center, the pharmaceutical sector suffered the second worst decline among all industries, surpassed only by wood and paper, with minus 2.6% in spring and 18.5% in summer. Jafar Qaempanah, head of the presidential office, also reports a 30% drop in the global production of medicines and a flight abroad of specialists who leave the country’s companies. In the year just ended, problems within the supply chain were compounded by a 13.6% drop in drug imports, customs data reveals.

The economic collapse of the Islamic Republic is also witnessed by the rial, the local currency, which has lost 35% of its value in six months; In addition, the government has had to impose blockades on schools, offices and industries due to the energy crisis linked to the embargo. In the last days of 2024, massive demonstrations took place in the capital’s most important bazaar: on December 29, numerous merchants went on strike to protest against the increase in prices and the exchange rate. Protesters point the finger at the shortage of raw materials, the serious stagnation caused by exorbitant prices, the lack of liquidity in the market and taxes that deplete already scarce resources.

Behmanesh shared his own first-hand experience with the shortage of medicines for multiple sclerosis: “For more than six months, medicines from abroad have not been distributed to pharmacies. Even domestically produced ones are difficult to find. And at the national level, he warned: “As a pharmacist, the quality of medicines made in Iran, especially for chronic diseases, is far inferior to that of foreign ones. This has harmed patients, who are forced to rely on national medicines. In this sense, researcher and expert in the pharmaceutical industry Mohammadreza Danesh adds: “Given the shortage of imported raw materials, it is to be expected that the few pharmaceutical companies still operating in Iran do not have high quality materials… and the crisis monetary has aggravated this problem. Despite the alarms, the Minister of Health, Mohammadreza Zafarghandi, denies the crisis and announces that special tariffs in foreign currency for medicines will be completely eliminated in the year that has just begun.



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