Kazakh morphine production held back by MIA’s biased attitudes

Almaty. April 29. Silkroadnews – Morphine production is held back because of MIA’s (Ministry of International Affairs) biased attitude towards it, Gulnara Kunirova, who heads “Together Against Cancer”, thinks.
“Pilled morphine is the cheapest opium-based painkiller that is prescribed to cancer patients. It is not available in Kazakhstan. Local pharmaceutical companies are ready to produce it, but excessive oversight system developed by MIA is what stops them. MIA thinks that producers would contribute to illegal circulation of this drug”, Gulbarga Kunirova said at the conference on “Globalisation and Access to Drugs”.
148 000 people are registered as cancer patients in Kazakhstan. However, there is no statistics on numbers of those in need of painkillers.
Per capita consumption of opium-based painkillers for medical and scientific purposes is estimated to be around 1.16 mg of morphine in Kazakhstan. In comparison, it is around 15 mg per capita in Belarus and around 812 mg per capita in Canada.
Experts claim there is currently a lack of highly efficient painkillers in Kazakhstan. At the same time, those painkillers are routinely used throughout the world.