Ukraine Facing Severe Shortage Of Medicine

KIEV, Ukraine -- Hundreds of thousands of hemophilia and cancer sufferers as well as HIV-positive patients are out of medication due to the delay in procuring drugs.

In Ukraine, where health care is free, the treatment is provided by the state hospitals.

However - according to the Ukrainian hemophilia union's leader Oleksand Shmilo - when hospitals are facing the shortage of drugs, black markets remain the only hope for the patients.

The shortage of medicines was top on the agenda of the recent governmental meeting.

Meanwhile the health minister Oleksandr Anishchenko claimed that the main reasons behind the medicines supply crisis were non-transparent tenders and overpriced drugs.

He stressed that delays had allowed the government to invite new bidders and lower costs.

The Minister sees the recent shortage a good time to fight corruption and black-marketing in pharmaceutics.

This point is partly shared by experts and patients.

However, they stress that this goal shouldn't be achieved in cost of human lives.

The Minister of Health promises that problem with vaccines will be solved in a month.

Experts however say that the patients cannot wait for a month.

So if the drugs are not supplied immediately, essential therapies will grind to a halt.