Sudanese Patients Suffering Amid Medicine Shortage After 11 Months of Civil War
(AWP) - Sudanese patients are decrying the lack of medication that has worsened during the civil war which has been ongoing for almost a year between the army and Rapid Support Forces (RSF), forcing millions to flee the capital Khartoum and other cities towards the Red Sea State, east of the country.
The increase in the number of displaced people in the state, particularly in its capital Port Sudan, has left pharmacy shelves empty and caused a massive rise in prices of available medicines.
In one of the Port Sudan pharmacies, a diabetic man named Mubarak Abdul Razek, said, “There is a shortage of life-saving medicines – of diabetes and blood pressure medicines. I have been suffering from diabetes for 25 years. We cannot find injections. The price of insulin has risen to 4500 [Sudanese] pounds, and external pharmacies may or may not have it.”
Another Sudanese patient, Rafah Hassan, described her struggle to find medication since she was displaced to Port Sudan.
She said, “Since coming here due to the war in June, I have been looking for 25g Cyrosin, but I have only found it here once. I used to buy it for 500 [Sudanese] pounds but now one strip costs 5000 pounds.”
Pharmacist Mohsen Ahmed said, “All the quantities that reach us run out fast because consumption is large and the number of people has increased. At the same time, medicine is not available and the imported quantities are small and do not meet the needs of the state, which have become huge. The number of displaced people has increased and the illnesses have risen in the past period, leading to numerous health problems.”
Yasser al-Baghdadi, Deputy Secretary-General of the Sudanese National Medicines and Poison Board, described some emergency measures taken to tackle the issue.
He said, “A large number of decisions have been taken to help secure medicines, including allowing imports from countries with good regulatory systems. Of course, any country classified by the World Health Organisation as having a good regulatory system can be imported directly from.”
“It has also been announced that Egyptian medicines will be imported to meet the need because Egypt is the closest to us and movement from there is quick and easy. Following approval, a quantity of varieties arrived from Egypt.”