US sanctions deepen Iran medicine shortages
Farah, a 59-year-old resident of Iran’s capital Tehran, used to fill her autoimmune prescription with a Swiss-made drug. Now she takes the Iranian-made version and worries that, too, may soon be in short supply.”
I switched to the Iranian-made version because of the price and availability,” she told Al Jazeera, giving only her first name. “You might not find the foreign-made version later, and you can’t keep switching because they don’t have the same quality and effectiveness.”
She’s now bracing for shortages of the Iranian-made drug, too.
Iranian news outlets have reported growing shortages of medicine for cancer and other serious illnesses amid a crisis in Iran’s pharmaceutical sector, as the United States leans on military pressure, sanctions and a naval blockade to squeeze Iranians.
About 800 pharmaceutical products are currently in short supply nationwide, including 90 considered essential and life-saving, according to Hadi Ahmadi, a spokesman for the Iranian Pharmac ists Association. Four hundred of those drugs, he told local media last week, are manufactured inside Iran.Prices, meanwhile, have surged.
The state-run Mehr News Agency reported last week that the price of gabapentin, used to treat epilepsy and nerve pain, has risen 220 percent over the past year. Pain and fever pill Acetaminophen has risen by 375 percent, antibiotic Amoxicillin by 285 percent, and anti-depressant Fluoxetine by 100 percent. Insulin, a daily necessity for diabetics, now costs up to six times what it did a year ago.
The increases are part of a wider inflationary spiral in the country. Iran’s inflation rate is among the highest in the world, with the cost of essential food items up more than 123 percent year-on-year as of August, and several staples like cooking oil more than tripling in price.
