Insulin shortage crisis again; import of low-quality insulin from China and dispute over price
Media reports in Iran indicate a renewed crisis and shortage of insulin in the provinces of East Azerbaijan, Kerman, Tehran, Khorasan Razavi, and Semnan.
Mohammad Reza Shanesaz, head of the Food and Drug Administration, said on March 26 that "limited foreign exchange resources and the failure to allocate sufficient foreign exchange on a timely basis by the Central Bank" were the cause of the problem, but the Hamshahri newspaper, in a report published on Sunday, March 1, cited the disagreement between importers and sellers over the price of imported insulin as a major problem.
According to the report, importers have imported insulin from China, Turkey, Denmark, and France, and the fact that insulin imported from Turkey is cheaper than samples imported from Denmark and France, and the sellers' disagreements about the selling price, have disrupted its distribution process.
According to the report, the Iranian government has also attempted to import insulin from China, but "doctors had emphasized that it should not be used because it leads to a severe drop in blood sugar."
The report states that the Iranian type of insulin is "the same Chinese one that is assembled in Iran," and that the Iranian government, which easily imports medicine from China, does not care about the quality of this medicine.
On January 25 of this year, Haidar Mohammadi, the Director General of the Food and Drug Administration, said that we only have enough insulin for the country's needs for one month, while we should have reserves for three months.
In October and November of this year, the shortage of insulin pens in Iranian pharmacies caused a wave of concern among diabetic patients and their families, and even led to the formation of a black market for insulin in the country, to the point where the drug was sold on the black market for eight times the pharmacy price.
At the same time as the insulin crisis this fall, Mahmoud Najafi Arab, head of the Health Economics Commission of the Iranian Chamber of Commerce, told the Tejarat News website in late October that "they have imported one and a half times the country's need for insulin," but the shortage is due to "reverse smuggling" and "illegal export of insulin from Iran to other countries."
He did not mention the destination of the reverse insulin smuggling, but said the reason for this is the allocation of 4,200 Tomans and the import of cheap medicine, and then some people sell the imported medicines to customers in other countries "at the free market dollar price."
According to official statistics, there are about five and a half million people with diabetes in the country, of which more than 600,000 currently need to use insulin daily.
The insulin shortage crisis has recurred periodically over the past six months, while Iranian Ministry of Health officials have announced that the probability of death for patients infected with the coronavirus is 1.5 to three times higher than for other people.
Source: Radio Farda
