TEHRAN – A total of 1,564 medical and healthcare centers will be set up nationwide by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20, 2021), the deputy health minister has said.

At least a budget of $250 million will be earmarked to set up the medical centers and clinics, IRNA quoted Kianoush Jahanpour as saying on Monday.

This year, $878 million has so far been provided for medicine and medical equipment, while more than $1.494 billion has been earmarked at the same time last year, he stated.

Mohammad Reza Shanehsaz, head of Food and Drug Administration, said in January that the Iranian pharmaceutical industry and scientists are capable of producing any kind of medicine over a two-year period.

Health Minister Saeed Namaki has said that some 97 percent of the whole medicine consumed in the country is produced domestically and only 3 percent is imported.

Moreover, with the onset of coronavirus in the country, Iran produced both drugs confirmed to be effective in the coronavirus treatment in less than a month, Tocilizumab and Remdesivir.

In addition to medicine production, Iran plays a leading role in the field of biotechnology in the region and the Middle East, and the production of 24 biotech drugs is evidence of this claim; and also Iranian knowledge-based companies are capable of manufacturing many high-tech medical types of equipment, Sourena Sattari, Vice President for Science and Technology, said in April.

FB/MG