Since the Beginning of This Year, ‘No Medication’ Has Been Imported for Iran’s 20,000 Thalassemia Patients
The chairman of the board of directors of the Iran Thalassemia Association announced on Wednesday, December 29, a ‘severe shortage’ of vital medications for 20,000 thalassemia patients in the country, stating that ‘no medication has been imported into the country for thalassemia patients since the beginning of this year until today.’
Mohammad Alizadeh, chairman of the board of directors of the Thalassemia Association, also told the ILNA news agency that the only medication imported this year for thalassemia patients was ‘350,000 counterfeit drugs,’ which ’caused significant harm to patients’.
According to Mr. Alizadeh, managers of the Food and Drug Organization, in response to the follow-ups by this association and drug-dependent patients, have not provided a ‘clear answer to these requests, except for calling the patients’ demands unreasonable’.
This is while the death rate of thalassemia patients, according to this thalassemia association official, ‘has increased sharply, and 538 thalassemia patients have died since April 2018 to date’.
Thalassemia patients need between seven to 10 million injection ampoules annually, and from the beginning of this year until today, ‘less than 1.5 million ampoules have been delivered to them’.
The failure to allocate currency by the government to import medication for special patients is cited as the main reason for the drug shortage, and while the Thalassemia Association has also notified the presidential office of the issue, according to the chairman of the association’s board, the result of the follow-up has only been the issuance of Ibrahim Raisi’s order to ‘investigate the problem’.
Although Iranian government officials link the sanctions issue to the drug shortage problem, the chairman of the Iran Thalassemia Association on Wednesday emphasized another reason and said: ‘We recently informed the presidential office of the association’s severe concern about the drug shortage and asked for their help. The President also ordered the Minister of Health to investigate the problem and send the results to his office so a decision can be made in this regard, but thalassemia patients are still caught in the confusing mess of drug supply.’
Some Iranian officials during Hassan Rouhani’s presidency, including his Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, had accused America of imposing sanctions on the export of ‘pharmaceutical items’ to Iran, but America had repeatedly announced that exporting drugs to Iran is not among sanctioned items.
Thalassemia is the most common single-gene disorder in the world, with its beta type being widespread in Iran. Currently, there are approximately 20,000 people with thalassemia disease and between two to three million people (4 percent of the population) carrying the disease in Iran.
Source: Radio Farda
