Azerbaijan, Baku, Jun.22/ Trend R.Zamanov
Iran's incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has instructed the Health Ministry to purchase and store enough medicines to meet domestic consumption within 6-9 months, the country's Health Minister said on Saturday.
The mentioned amount of medicines should be stored before the formation of Iran's next administration, the Tasnim News Agency quoted Mohammad Hassan Tariqat Monfared as saying.
He went on to note that the government has resumed allocating forex to medicine purchase.
"Some 95 per cent of the country's needed drugs are currently produced domestically," Tariqat Monfared said.
Iran's Deputy Minister of Health Abbas Haji Akhundi said on June 21 that the government has once again resumed allocating forex to import medicine.
The government had stopped providing forex to medicine purchase in February, the ISNA News Agency quoted Akhundi as saying.
During the past few months, $60-70 million has been provided for purchasing drugs resulting in a medicine shortage, he explained.
Akhundi said on June 19 that each family will be provided with financial assistance in the form of subsidies for the purchase of medicines, the ISNA News Agency reported.
Given the rise in price of drugs, the government will assist families when purchasing expensive drugs, Haji Akhundi said.
Patients will provide a certificate of purchase of medicines in pharmacies, based on which the relevant amount will be transferred to their bank accounts, Akhundi said.
"We have tested this in the Iranian province of Yazd, and in the near future, this system will be applied across the country," he said.
The information does not indicate the amount of funds to be transferred to the bank accounts of families.
International sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program have led to a significant increase in the dollar against the Iranian rial last year. This has led to a rise in price of drugs imported into the country for patients suffering from serious diseases.
According to Iranian media reports, there is a shortage or high prices observed in the country for medicines required for the treatment of cancer, cardiovascular disease, SARS and respiratory diseases, hemophilia, multiple sclerosis and other diseases.