Poor countries get 1% of global supply … to treat half the world’s people. In Ethiopia, a new initiative has begun, but too late for those suffering without oral morphine
Filagot Tadele, a palliative care nurse, spends her days crisscrossing Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, caring for cancer and HIV patients. Many of them are slowly dying and in extraordinary pain.
She carries with her a box of assorted medicines, but lacks the one drug she needs to relieve suffering: oral morphine. The powerful opioid is not made in Ethiopia and shortages of imported medicines mean it has disappeared from pharmacy shelves.
