Radioactive drugs delayed on flight safety issues

By Evie Andreou

THE reason why not all the quantity of radioisotope medicines ordered made it to Cyprus was because of flight safety reasons and had nothing to do with the fact that the issue was not resolved earlier, the Health ministry said in an announcement on Wednesday.

The problem of the transportation of the radioactive drugs, used to provide diagnostic information about the functioning of a person’s specific organs, or for treatments, rose last week after the closing down of Cyprus Airways that was shipping the drugs to the island on a weekly basis.

It was announced last week that the ministry had made permanent arrangements for their transportation using German carrier Lufthansa but as only half of the last order arrived in Cyprus this prompted state hospitals to cancel patients’ appointments.

“The production, transportation and placing of a radioisotope is done with specific security measures. As a result of the closing down of Cyprus Airways, the quantity ordered last week … to cover the private and public sector was bigger than the allowed transportation quantity,” the announcement said.

It seems that the radioactive cargo was in total exceeding the allowed radioactive levels the plane could carry.

“Arrangements have been made so that the rest of the cargo will arrive in Cyprus during the weekend,” it said.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.