Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct. 21 /Trend N. Umid/
Prices of 34 types of medicine specifically designed for hard-to-cure diseases have been reduced back to the past year's levels, Iran's Food and Drug Organisation head Rasoul Dinarvand said, Fars news agency reported.
The price of these drugs went down 50 per cent due to the administration's supportive policy, he added.
Previously the Health Ministry of Iran lowered the price of 136 hard-to-cure diseases drugs to the previous year's level, the report said.
The Iranian Health Ministry has allocated a special budget of around 18 trillion rials, about $725 million based on the USD official rate of 24,800 rials per each USD, to bring the aforementioned drugs under medical insurance coverage, Dinarvand stated.
He also underlined that some other expensive hard-to-cure diseases medicines would be added to the subsidised supported drugs list during next month.
Iran's Central Bank has resumed allocation of foreign currency for drug imports based on an official rate of 24,800 rials per dollar, he added.
Iran imports 90 per cent of the raw materials for producing medicaments from India and China, Iran's Food and Drug Organisation deputy director Shams-Ali Rezazadeh said.
On July 1, Rezazadeh said that Iran has increased the price of domestically produced drugs by 40 per cent as the exchange rate of foreign currency which is used to import raw materials has increased.
He added that prices of foreign made drugs which are being imported have been increased by 90 per cent.
Iran experiences certain difficulties with drug shortages in the country, largely because of international sanctions imposed on Iran due to its disputed nuclear programme.
Despite the fact sanctions do not directly target medical supplies and food, many companies refuse to deal with Iran fearing the impact of the sanctions.
Due to western-led sanctions, only a handful of international banks are willing to transfer currencies on behalf of Iran to purchase medicine which is leading to a shortage of imported drugs.