Price hikes hit Darfur health centres, Khartoum pharmacies

Five camps for displaced people in Darfur face the spread of malaria, fevers and diarrhoea amid increasing prices for medicines, camp residents reported. People protested the price hikes in pharmacies in Khartoum.

Displaced people in the camps in Bindisi and Garsila in Central Darfur, Murnei camp in West Darfur, and the Kass and Otash camps in South Darfur complained about the spread of diseases, including typhoid, among camp residents.

As several of them spoke to Radio Dabanga, they pointed to a lack of medicines in the camps’ health centres, and the high prices in pharmacies outside of the camps. The prices are higher than most people can afford. Displaced people requested government authorities to make medicines available for them.

Khartoum pharmacies

In the capital of Sudan, a number of people – including patients – protested in front of pharmacies at El Sug El Arabi against the increase in medicine prices yesterday. Some prices doubled.

Prices for live-saving treatments including medicines for diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease, have also increased.

Speaking to this station a number of pharmacists said that the price increases for imported drugs range from 35 to 105 per cent, and attributed this to the fall of the Sudanese Pound against the US Dollar.

Last week, the National Fund for Medical Supplies acknowledged a scarcity of a number of medicines and rise in the prices at health facilities and private pharmacies. “The government is unable to provide hard currency for the import of medicines. This has led to a large number of people not being able to buy their medicines before the price increase,” a pharmacist told Radio Dabanga.

The price of insulin, for example, rose from SDG85 to SDG100 ($12.65-$14.90). Asthma ventilator spray has risen by more than 20 per cent. In addition, intravenous solutions and respirators have been scarce.