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which were related to nuclear industry and were used for special patients.
Iranian Health Ministry officials have noted that the country has to import
somewhere between three percent and 30 percent of its needed medicines.
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Most of these medicines are needed for special or intractable diseases such as
thalassemia, hemophilia, kidney diseases, MS, cancer and so forth. Controlling
these diseases and patients’ survival strongly depend on easy access to relevant
medicines. However, under the
sanctions regime, special medicines
saw a steep rise in price while patients
had great difficulty for having access
to them. An example to the point was
patients who needed a special medicine
for epidermolysis bullosa (EB). During
the sanctionsperiod, suchapatient had to
pay 1.5 million Rials (about 38 dollars)
to buy a single Mepilex dressing, which
they have to buy on a daily basis in
order to dress their wounds. This was
under conditions when the minimum
wage approved by Iran’s Ministry of
Labor and Social Security was between 4.5 million Rials (about 117 dollars)
to six million Rials (155 dollars). On the other hand, an increased number of
intermediaries was needed to go around sanctions and this was also a major
factor causing a great leap in the price of such medicines. In 2012, when the
UN secretary general emphasized the need to prevent human suffering resulting
from sanctions, the list of rare medicines in Iran increased from 30 to 90 items
over a period of few months. Later on, the list was further expanded to include
300 medicines as a result of which, by and by, more essential medicines used by