ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – The Iraqi Ministry of Health announced on Tuesday that they have destroyed just under nine million sheets of non-compliant medicine during the year 2024.

“The medicines that were referred for the proper destruction procedure were seized by conducting 21,675 inspection visits,” said Director General of the Inspection Department Sabah Nouri al-Khazali.

“The Inspection Department in the Ministry of Health announced the referral of 8,962,207 pieces of non-compliant medicine after completing all legal procedures and issuing special orders to destroy them during the past year 2024,” read a statement by the Ministry of Health on Tuesday.

Smuggled and non-compliant medications have long been an issue for the Iraqi pharmaceutical sector. Price differences, drug shortages, as well as chronic users of these medications have helped build a market for these illegal medications. 

Many pharmacies have “dealers” who smuggle the medications from neighboring countries to them, who then subsequently hide it somewhere in the pharmacy until a patient comes asking for it.

The issue is made worse by the fact that some of these medications have certain storage conditions and regulations.

Insulin pens, an example of medicines that require refrigerated storage among others, are sometimes among these smuggled medicines, where the proper storage conditions are not met, potentially leading to the breakdown and degradation of the medicines.

However, a stark drop in the price between the legally imported and the smuggled counterpart of the exact same medicine is enough to sway a patient toward the smuggled medicine, despite the clear downsides that accompany it. 

This has led to a game of cat and mouse between pharmacies, who order these medications and hide them, and the inspection teams who carry out routine inspections.

The issue is prominent enough that it has enabled an entire market where obtaining these medications are as easy as going to a pharmacy and asking for them. And more often than not, that can be enough to acquire them.