Kathmandu, May 22 -- based BP Koirala Memorial Cancer Hospital has seen the supply of Cisplatin, a platinum-based chemotherapy medication used for the treatment of various forms of solid cancers, stopped for three months. The hospital had procured Carboplatin, another platinum-based chemotherapy medication, in advance, and it was also used last week.

"We do not have both medicines, and neither can be procured in the market," said Dr Umesh Nepal, acting director of the hospital. "Patients having various kinds of cancers and their relatives are in deep trouble at present due to acute scarcity of the two medicines."

Along with carboplatin and Cisplatin, oxaliplatin is also used in chemotherapy for cancer patients, and Nepal has been facing...