BEIRUT — Nearly 7,000 pills of out-of-stock medicine were seized during further warehouse raids, caretaker Health Minister Hamad Hassan announced on Tuesday.
Here’s what we know:
• Some 6,800 pills were confiscated in raids in Beirut’s Tallet al-Khayat neighborhood and Metn’s Sadd-Boushrieh, Hassan said.
• While the minister did not specify which medications were seized, he said the drugs were out of stock in hospitals, and that some were among the medications needed to treat burn victims from the deadly fuel tanker explosion in Tleil, Akkar, on Aug. 15. The explosion left more than 30 dead and 80 wounded, some of whom were transferred abroad for treatment due to a shortage of medicine for burns in Lebanon.
• Hassan called on the judiciary to “take measures to deter people and institutions that monopolize medicines.”
• Countrywide shortages of drugs and fuel, which are both partially subsidized by Lebanon’s central bank, have been blamed by authorities on smuggling and hoarding operations.
• Over the last week, Hassan has taken part in warehouse raids in which large amounts of medicine, infant milk and diapers were found. Over the weekend, the former head of Lebanon’s pharmacists’ syndicate, Rabih Hassouna, was arrested after more than 130 boxes of medical supplies used to treat cancer were found in a warehouse belonging to him during a raid executed by the Lebanese Army.