Like many people affected by serious illness in ex-Soviet Central Asia, Almagul Ibrayeva is having trouble finding medicine in her native Kyrgyzstan.<\/p>\n
“Women are dying because of a lack of medicine,” Ibrayeva, who is in her 50s, told AFP.<\/p>\n
In remission from breast cancer, Ibrayeva needs a hormone treatment called exemestane after having a mastectomy and her reproductive organs were removed.<\/p>\n
She said she “often” faces difficulties.<\/p>\n
“I order it from Turkey or Moscow, where my daughter lives,” she said.<\/p>\n
“There are many medicines that are simply unavailable here. The patient has to look themselves and buy them.”<\/p>\n
– ‘Meagre’ supply of medicine –<\/p>\n
Shortages, high prices and the poor quality of medicine affect many of the region’s 80 million inhabitants.<\/p>\n
The five Central Asian countries are highly dependent on pharmaceutical imports and patients are often left to fend for themselves.<\/p>\n
There are often cases of expired or adulterated medicine such as the cough syrup imported from India which killed 69 children in Uzbekistan in 2023.<\/p>\n
The costs of high-quality medicine are often prohibitive.<\/p>\n
“Some people sell their homes, their livestock, get into debt just to survive,” said Shairbu Saguynbayeva, a uterine cancer survivor.<\/p>\n
She created a centre called “Together to Live” in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek which hosts women who have cancer, offering accommodation and help for treatment.<\/p>\n
“Here they can get organised. When someone is receiving chemotherapy, they fall ill, not every loved one can handle it,” Saguynbayeva said.<\/p>\n
Women at the centre sew and sell traditional Kyrgyz ornaments — funding the treatment of 37 patients since 2019.<\/p>\n
Saguynbayeva says she is grateful to the Kyrgyz state for “finally” starting to supply more medicine but says the quantity is still “meagre”.<\/p>\n
One patient, Barakhat Saguyndykova, told AFP that she received “free anti-cancer medicine only three times between 2018 and 2025”.<\/p>\n
At the National Oncology and Haematology Centre, doctor Ulanbek Turgunbaev said that sourcing medicine was “a very serious problem for patients” even though medicine supply has increased.<\/p>\n
He said the best way of reducing therapy costs was “early detection” of serious illnesses.<\/p>\n
– ‘Better to save a mother’ –<\/p>\n
Material deficits and a shortage of 5,000 health professionals in Kyrgyzstan mean that the most urgent needs have to be addressed first.<\/p>\n
President Sadyr Japarov has promised to eliminate corruption in the medical sector, which cost the health minister his job last winter.<\/p>\n
While medicine factories have finally been opened, the situation in the short term remains complicated.<\/p>\n
The Kyrgyz Chamber of Commerce and Industry said that “around 6,000 medicines could disappear from the market by 2026” because of the need to “re-register under the norms of the Eurasian Economic Union” — a gathering of former Soviet republics including Kyrgyzstan.<\/p>\n
The government in 2023 created a state company called Kyrgyz Pharmacy which is supposed to centralise medicine requests and bring down prices, according to its head, Talant Sultanov.<\/p>\n
But the organisation has been under pressure because of a lack of results.<\/p>\n
Sultanov said he hoped medicine prices could be lowered “by signing more long-term agreements with suppliers through purchases grouped on a regional basis” with other Central Asian countries.<\/p>\n
Kyrgyz Pharmacy has promised steady supplies soon but many women in Bishkek are still waiting for medicine ordered through the company months ago.<\/p>\n
Recently a mother of three “died simply because she did not receive her medicine in time,” Saguynbayeva said.<\/p>\n
“It is better to save a mother than to build orphanages,” she said.<\/p>\n
aj-bk\/dt\/giv<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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