🔻Iran’s health minister: Disruptions in transportation have led to an increase in drug prices

Mohammadreza Zafarghandi, Iran’s health minister, confirmed the rise in drug prices and said that transportation problems are among the reasons for this increase.

He said that raw materials that were previously imported by ship are now forced to be transported by plane, which has increased costs.

The health minister also said that during the war, 16 pharmaceutical factories and more than 70 hospitals in Iran have been targeted by attacks.

Zafarghandi says: “In fields such as anesthesiology, emergency medicine, and pediatrics—where we have a shortage of doctors—we will increase fees, and we have also increased some, so that we can use this to provide incentives for creating [such] capacity.”

These remarks come one day after the Iranian Pharmacists’ Association announced that the influenza vaccine, despite the start of the appropriate vaccination season, has not yet been entered into the distribution network. The association said that precise information about the number of vaccines that have been imported, their supply source, and the distribution timeline is still not available.