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Viagra Takes on The Arab Gulf
By IOL Staff
DUBAI (IOL) - The male sexual impotence cure, Viagara, is the most popular aphrodisiac in the oil-rich Arab Gulf countries, according to recent figures released by a major pharmaceutical company.
Gulf Pharmaceuticals, a leading Gulf-based company, said in a report on Thursday that only two countries of the Gulf's six nations consumed as many as US$ 14 million worth of Viagara pills over the past year alone.
The US pill came into existence three years ago and has ever since taken many parts of the world by storm. The affluent countries of the Arab Gulf have no restrictions on the sale of the medicine, unlike other parts of the world. The drug treats male impotence and those who have problems having sex by helping them have an erection.
In America, the FDA, the agency that monitors drug production, said it was watching Viagra very closely because of the tremendous response to the medication.
The drug is so popular that some women ventured into using the drug prompting the US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, the maker of Viagra, to issue warnings that the drug is not for women.
Deaths caused after using the drug also made the company advise that it should be not used by men on nitrates for heart disease.
Pfizer says that erectile dysfunction (ED) affects over 30 million men to some degree in the United States
alone . "Viagra is by far the most widely used treatment for ED," Pfizer said on its Viagra web site.
The company estimates that in the United States, more than five million men have turned to Vigara to improve their sexual function. Doctors in the United States have prescribed the drug more than 16 million times . The drug has proven to work in up to 82% of patients who take
Viagra experience an improvement in their erections.
Gulf Pharmaceuticals said Saudi Arabia, a country of only 17 million people, consumed around US$ 12 million of the pill over the past year.
"The consumption of the drug is on the increase in the United Arab Emirates," said Abderlraziq Youssef, CEO of Gulf Pharmaceuticals. "In fact it's very popular in many Arab countries."
The pill, which cost between $7-10 in the US is sold for at least 20 in the Arab Gulf region.
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