TEHRAN – Swiss Ambassador to Tehran Nadine Olivieri Lozano met with Health Minister Bahram Einollahi, emphasizing the need to develop bilateral relations in all fields, including the health sector.

In a meeting in Tehran on Friday, Lozano announced her country’s full readiness to expand cooperation with Iran and called for developing bilateral relations in the field of health.

Einollahi also asked Lozano to use all efforts to develop bilateral cooperation in the field of health during her stay in Iran, pointing to the history of cooperation and friendship between Iran and Switzerland in the past.

Lozano also met and exchanged views with Mohammad Hossein Nicknam, the deputy health minister for international affairs.

Appreciating the presence of Swiss pharmaceutical, food, and medical equipment companies in Iran during the cruel U.S. sanctions, Nicknam called for the efforts of the two countries to ease the conditions and resolve possible problems for the continued presence of these companies in Iran.

Rise in pharmaceuticals, medical productions

The import of pharmaceuticals has declined in Iran by 91 percent, which shows the capability of the country’s pharmaceutical industry, Mohammad Reza Shanehsaz, former head of the Food and Drug Administration, said last October.

Based on innovative indicators of health technology development in 2021, Iran was ranked 60th among 132 countries.Today, all medicine used in the treatment of coronavirus are produced by domestic manufacturers, and if we wanted to import all the items, there would be a high exchange rate, he further stated, emphasizing that COVID-19 vaccine development indicates the pharmaceutical industry’s capability.

In 2018, 67 percent of the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) used to produce drugs in Iran were made locally.

A total of 227 knowledge-based firms are supplying medical equipment for health centers across the country, according to the Vice Presidency for Science and Technology.

Knowledge-based companies can produce any medicine effective in countering coronavirus or approved by the scientific committee within a week to 10 days, Sourena Sattari, vice president for science and technology, said.

Also, Iran is capable of production of biopharmaceuticals, which has so far reached 28 items, making Iran the third leading country in Asia.

Based on innovative indicators of health technology development in 2021, Iran was ranked 60th among 132 countries, which shows an improvement of 60 steps compared to 2014, the deputy health minister for research and technology, has announced.

Despite the sanctions that have existed since the beginning of the Islamic Revolution, Iran has the strongest health system in the region.

FB/MG