Claire Galofaro, U.S.-based enterprise writer; Cara Anna, newsperson, Johannesburg; Khaled Kazziha, senior producer, and Ben Curtis, chief photographer, Nairobi, reveal how Rwanda is making and distributing its own morphine to provide painkillers for its people, who cannot afford other opioids or the more expensive morphine manufactured by global drug manufacturers.
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Only on AP: Opioids too costly, Rwanda makes own morphine
Joselyne Mukanyabyenda, center, holds a bottle of oral liquid morphine that her daughter Ange Mucyo Izere, 6, right, uses to alleviate the pain of her bone marrow cancer, at home in Kigali, Rwanda, Nov. 6, 2019. While people in affluent countries are dying from overuse of prescription painkillers, Rwanda has come up with an alternative to costly opioids – morphine, which costs just pennies to produce and is delivered to households across the country by public health workers.
AP Photo / Ben Curtis