
The head of Iran’s Thalassemia Society reports that in the past four months Iran has not produced any drugs to treat the blood disease.
Mohammadreza Mashhadi told Mehr News Agency that Thalassemia sufferers are faced with a drug crisis because the domestic production of the drugs cannot meet the needs of the country’s patients, and in the past four months, even domestic production has fallen to 30 percent of the usual output.
Mashhadi stated that without Thalassemia drugs, sufferers will have to deal with a sudden rise in iron that could wreak irreparable side effects involving the heart, liver and kidney.
Iran is facing a drug crisis as a result of the U.S. and EU sanctions on its financial institutions that make it nearly impossible to pay for international transactions.