After reported cancer drug shortages, caretaker Health Minister confirms 'no theft'

BEIRUT — Caretaker Health Minister Firas Abiad said Thursday that a digital traceability pilot project has revealed that there was “no theft or vaporization” of a cancer medication donated to the ministry, which reportedly ran out last week, the state-run National News Agency reported.

Here's what we know:

• Abiad announced on Aug. 20 that he would open an investigation into shortages of several cancer medications that had been donated to Lebanon, after media reports circulated about a shortage of the following four products: Opdivo, Tecentriq, Ibrance and Xtandi.

• The minister said Thursday that all two hundred packages of Obdivo, received from American NGO Anera, were traced and located, “starting from the Health Ministry's warehouses in Karantina and terminating with the administration of the medicine to the patient,” adding that “the investigation committee will continue its work to track down the other cancer drugs” that were reported missing and that the investigation’s findings “will be announced transparently as soon as they are reached."

• Lebanon's economic collapse over the past three years has hit the health sector hard. Many medicines are in short supply or are now inaccessible for a large segment of the population, 80 percent of whom live below the poverty line according to UN figures.