Sanctions on Iran block folk access to medicine

TEHRAN, Iran: Taha Shakouri keeps finding remote corners to play in at a Tehran children’s charity hospital, unaware that his doctors are running out of chemo medicine needed to treat the eight-year-old boy’s liver cancer.

With Iran’s economy in free fall after the United States pullout from the nuclear deal and escalated sanctions on Tehran, prices of imported medicines have soared as the national currency tumbled about 70 percent against the dollar.