Tehran – The Ministry of Health will serve patients who are struggling with difficult-to-treatment and suffering from rare diseases during the Nowruz holiday, which begins on March 21st.
All government-run dialysis and dental clinic activities, centres of transfusion services for thalassemia patients, centres of coagulation factor injection for hemophilia patients, heart attack, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy centres will continue during Nowruz.
He also said 15 centres for comprehensive services to MS patients are open 24 hours a day, with services such as Pulse therapy going to be available at least one centre. “Over 100 chemotherapy and radiation therapy centres will also be active. Additionally, 211 centres with 10,310 hospital beds are active across the country to accommodate and serve patients with mental illness.”
A recent report by the Rare Disease Foundation shows that a total of 442 rare diseases have been identified in the country.
The incidence of rare diseases is very low to the extent that one or two people with a particular rare disease exist in the country. Several rare diseases such as “butterfly skin or EB”, “spinal muscular atrophy (SMA),” metabolic disease, “autism” and “intercultural” are one of the most common cases in the country.
In this respect, National Rarie Day is held annually on the 8th day of Esfand (the last Iranian calendar month), which corresponds to February 26th, to raise awareness and create support for individuals with rare diseases and their families.
This day has been approved to be designated as the national day for rare diseases in the national calendar for May 2021.