Why can't Egyptians get the medicines they need?
Egypt's decision to float the pound sent drug prices soaring, and drug companies have responded by curtailing imports, leading to a critical shortage.
CAIRO — Mohammed Lufti was desperate to obtain the prescription drugs his mother needed to live. He couldn't afford them, but he was trying to raise funds for her treatment after a stroke sent her to a Cairo hospital's intensive care unit.
“My mother is dying and we cannot afford the treatment,” he tweeted Nov. 19. But even if he could raise enough money, he hadn't been able to find the drugs. Egypt has been suffering from an acute shortage of many medicines, especially imported ones, since its Central Bank decided Nov. 3 to float the Egyptian pound.
“These drugs are imported and … doctors told me that the companies had stopped distributing them following the floating of the Egyptian pound," Lufti, who works in a clothing factory, told Al-Monitor. He said his mother needed a combination of three antibiotics to live: polymyxins B and E and tigecycline. "But I could not find them, and the doctors told me that her condition was deteriorating day after day." His mother died waiting for the drugs, he said.
The Egyptian government strictly regulates drug prices, so pharmaceutical companies haven't been able to raise prices. Yet they must pay about twice as much now to import the medicines or their ingredients. Their only alternative, some say, is to curtail imports and set restrictions on distribution, which they have done.
